UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


2) A/\n< pJUlA.    NO-   N^o/vVtf 


OLD    MADAME 
& 

Other  Tragedies 


OLD    MADAME 

& 

Other  Tragedies 

BY 

HARRIET  PRESCOTT  SPOFFORD 

AUTHOR  OF  An  Inheritance,  A  Master  Spirit, 
The  Scarlet  Poppy,  ETC. 


BOSTON 

E.  H.  Bacon  fcf  Co. 

1910 


COPYRIGHT  1899 

ICHARD  G.  BADGER  Sf  Co. 


All  Rights  Reserved 


THANKS  ARE  DUE  TO  THE  CENTURY   COMPANY 


TO    MR.   JOHN    BRISBEN    WALKER    AND   OTHERS 
FOR     THE     COURTESY     OP     BITDITD 


PS 


(04* 


n 

22  PAGE 

l"    OLD   MADAME 9 

ci 

^  ORDRONNAUX 69 

THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 155 

HER  STORY 205 

x  A  LOST  IDENTITY 253 


.  298575 


Old  Madame 


Old  Madame 


MISS  BARBARA  !  Barbara,  honey  1 
Where's  this  you're  hiding  at?" 
cried  old  Phillis,  tying  her  bandana  head- 
gear in  a  more  flamboyant  knot  over  her 
gray  hair  and  brown  face.  "  Where's  this 
you're  hiding  at?  The  Old  Madame's 
after  you." 

And  in  answer  to  the  summons,  a  girl 
clad  in  homespun,  but  with  every  line  of 
her  figure  the  lines,  one  might  fancy,  of 
a  wood-and-water  nymph's,  came  slowly  up 
from  the  shore  and  the  fishing-smacks,  with 
a  young  fisherman  beside  her. 

Down  on  the  margin,  the  men  were  haul- 
ing a  seine  and  singing  as  they  hauled;  a 
drogher  was  dropping  its  dark  sails  ;  bare- 
footed urchins  were  wading  in  the  breaking 
roller  where  the  boat  that  the  men  were 


io  OLD   MADAME 

launching  dipped  up  and  down;  women 
walked  with  baskets  poised  lightly  on  their 
heads,  calling  gayly  to  one  another ;  sands 
were  sparkling,  sails  were  glancing,  winds 
were  blowing,  waves  were  curling,  voices 
were  singing  and  laughing, —  it  was  all  the 
scene  of  a  happy,  sunshiny,  summer  morn- 
ing in  the  little  fishing-hamlet  of  an  island 
off  the  coast. 

The  girl  and  her  companion  wound  up 
the  stony  path,  passing  Phillis,  and  paused 
before  a  low  stone  house  that  seemed  only 
a  big  bowlder  itself,  in  whose  narrow,  open 
hallway,  stretching  from  door  to  door, 
leaned  a  stately  old  woman  on  her  staff, — 
a  background  of  the  sea  rising  behind  her. 

"  Did  you  wish  for  Barbara,  Old  Ma- 
dame ? "  asked  the  fisherman,  as  superb 
a  piece  of  rude  youth  and  strength  as  any 
young  Viking. 

She  fixed  him  with  her  glance  an  instant. 

"And  you  are  his  grandson?"  said  the  old 
woman.  "You  are  called  by  his  name  — 
the  fourth  of  the  name  —  Ben  Benvoisie. 
I  am  not  dreaming  ?  You  are  sure  of  it  ?  " 


OLD   MADAME  n 

"  As  sure  as  that  you  are  called  Old 
Madame,"  he  replied,  with  a  grave  pride 
of  self-respect,  and  an  air  of  something  sol- 
emn in  his  joy,  as  if  he  had  but  just  turned 
from  looking  on  death  to  embrace  life. 

"As  sure  as  that  I  am  called  Old  Ma- 
dame," she  repeated.  "  Barbara,  come  here. 
As  sure  as  that  I  am  called  Old  Madame." 

But  she  had  not  always  been  Old  Ma- 
dame. A  woman  not  far  from  ninety  now, 
tall  and  unbent,  with  her  great  black  eyes, 
glowing  like  stars  in  sunken  wells,  from  her 
face  scarred  with  the  script  of  sorrow  — 
a  proud  beggar,  preserving  in  her  little 
coffer  only  the  money  that  one  day  should 
bury  her  with  her  haughty  kindred  —  once 
she  was  the  beautiful  Elizabeth  Champer- 
noune,  the  child  of  noble  ancestry,  the  heir- 
ess of  unbounded  wealth,  the  last  of  a  great 
house  of  honor. 

From  birth  till  age,  nothing  that  sur- 
rounded her  but  had  its  relation  to  the 
family  grandeur.  Her  estate  —  her  grand- 
father's, nay,  her  great-grandfather's  —  lay  on 


12  OLD    MADAME 

a  goodly  island  at  the  mouth  of  a  broad  river ; 
an  island  whose  paltry  fishing-village  of 
to-day  was,  before  her  time,  a  community 
where  also  a  handful  of  other  dignitaries 
dwelt  in  only  less  splendor.  There  were 
one  or  two  of  the  ancient  fishermen  and 
pilots  yet  living  when  she  died,  who,  bab- 
bling of  their  memories,  could  recall  out  of 
their  childhood  the  stately  form  of  her 
father,  the  Judge  Champernoune,  as  he 
walked  abroad  in  his  black  robes,  who  came 
from  over  seas  to  marry  her  mother,  the 
heiress  of  the  hero  for  whom  the  King  of 
France  had  sent  —  when,  in  the  French  and 
Indian  wars,  the  echoes  of  his  daring  deeds 
rang  across  the  water  —  to  make  him  Baron 
Chaslesmarie,  with  famous  grants  arid 
largesse. 

And  in  state  befitting  one  whom  the  King 
of  France  thus  with  his  own  hand  exalted, 
had  the  prodigal  Baron  Chaslesmarie  spent 
his  days  —  never,  however,  discontinuing 
the  vast  fisheries  of  his  father,  in  which  he 
had  himself  made  fortunes  before  the  King 
had  found  him  out.  And  although  the  title 


OLD    MADAME  13 

died  with  him,  and  the  pension  died  before 
him,  for  the  King  of  France  had,  with 
treacherous  complaisance,  ceded  the  island 
to  the  enemy  one  day  when  war  was  over, 
yet  store  of  land  and  money  were  left  for 
the  sole  child,  who  became  the  wife  of  Judge 
Champernoune  and  the  mother  of  Elizabeth. 
What  a  sweet  old  spot  it  was  in  which 
Elizabeth's  girlhood  of  ideal  happiness  went 
by  !  The  house, —  a  many-gabled  dwelling, 
here  of  wood  and  there  of  brick,  with  a 
noble  hall  where  the  original  cornices  and 
casements  had  been  replaced  by  others  of 
carved  mahogany,  the  panels  of  the  doors 
rich  with  their  thick  gilding,  and  the  cellars 
three-deep  for  the  cordials  and  dainties  with 
which  the  old  Baron  Chaslesmarie  had  stored 
them, — was,  a  part  of  it,  once  brought  from 
foreign  shores  as  the  great  Government- 
house.  Set  in  its  brilliant  gardens,  it  was  a 
pleasant  sight  to  see  —  here  a  broad  upper 
gallery  giving  airy  shelter,  there  a  flight  of 
stairs  running  from  some  flower-bed  to  some 
casement,  with  roses  and  honeysuckles  clam- 
bering about  the  balustrade,  avenues  of 


i4  OLD    MADAME 

ash  and  sycamore  leading  away  from  it,  an 
outer  velvet  turf  surrounding  it  and  ending 
in  a  boundary  of  mossy  granite  bowlders. 
The  old  baron  slept  in  his  proud  tomb 
across  the  bay  —  by  the  fort  he  had  de- 
fended, the  chapel  he  had  built,  in  the  grave- 
yard of  his  people,  proud  as  he.  And  Ben 
Benvoisie,  the  lad  whom  gossips  said  he  had 
snatched  from  the  shores  of  some  Channel 
Island  in  one  of  the  wild  voyages  of  his 
youth,  slept  at  his  feet, —  but  another  Ben 
Benvoisie  lived  after  him.  In  a  dimple  be- 
tween these  bowlders  of  the  gardens'  boun- 
dary, Judge  Champernoune  and  his  wife  and 
his  other  child  were  laid  away.  There  was 
always  something  sadly  romantic  to  Eliza- 
beth in  the  thought  of  her  father  walking 
over  the  island  from  time  to  time,  and  se- 
lecting this  spot  for  his  eternal  rest,  where 
the  rocky  walls  enclosed  him,  the  snows  of 
winter  and  the  bramble-roses  of  summer 
covered  him,  and  the  waves,  not  far  remote, 
sang  his  long  lullaby. 

By  the  time  that  Elizabeth  inherited  the 
place,  the  importance  of  the  island  town  had 


OLD   MADAME  15 

gone  up  the  river  to  a  spot  on  the  main- 
land, and  one  by  one  the  great  families  had 
followed,  the  old  judge  buying  the  land  of 
them  as  they  went,  and  their  houses,  dismem- 
bered, with  fire  and  with  decay,  of  a  wing  here 
and  a  gable  there,  and  keeping  but  little  trace 
of  them.  The  judge  had  no  thought  of  leav- 
ing ;  and  the  people  would  have  felt  as  if  the 
hand  of  Providence  had  been  withdrawn 
had  he  done  so.  Nor  had  Elizabeth  any 
thought  of  it,  when  she  came  to  reign  in  her 
father's  stead  and  infuse  new  life  into  the 
business  of  her  ancestors,  that  had  continued, 
as  it  were,  by  its  own  momentum,  since, 
although  Judge  Champernoune  had  not 
thought  it  beneath  his  judicial  dignity  to 
carry  it  on  as  he  found  it,  yet,  owing  to  his 
other  duties,  he  had  not  given  it  that  per- 
sonal attention  it  had  in  the  vigor  and  impetus 
of  the  Chaslesmaries.  She  had  not  a  mem- 
ory that  did  not  belong  to  the  place.  Certain 
sunbeams  that  she  recalled  slanting  down  the 
warehouses  rich  with  the  odors  of  spices  and 
sugar,  through  which  she  had  wandered  as 
a  child,  were  living  things  to  her;  a  foggy 


1 6  OLD   MADAME 

morning,  when  an  unseen  fruiter  in  the  sea- 
mist  made  all  the  air  of  the  island  port  deli- 
cious as  some  tropical  grove,  with  its  cargo 
of  lemons,  seemed  like  a  journey  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  And  the  place  itself  was  her 
demesne,  she  its  acknowledged  chatelaine ; 
there  was  not  a  woman  in  the  town  who  had 
not  served  in  her  mother's  kitchen  or  hall ; 
it  was  in  her  fishing-smacks  the  men  went 
out  to  sea,  in  her  brigs  they  ran  down  to  the 
West  Indian  waters  and  over  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean ports  —  perhaps,  alas,  the  African  ;  it 
was  her  warehouses  they  filled  with  goods 
from  far  countries,  which  her  agents  scattered 
over  the  land  —  for  a  commerce  that  had  be- 
gun with  the  supplying  of  the  fishing-fleets, 
had  swelled  into  a  great  foreign  trade.  And 
their  homes  were  all  that  she  could  make 
them  in  their  degree ;  their  children  she 
herself  attended  in  sudden  illness,  having 
been  reared,  as  her  mother  was  before  her,  in 
the  homely  surgery  and  herb-craft  proper 
to  those  that  had  others  in  their  charge ;  and 
many  a  stormy  night,  in  later  years,  did  the 
good  Dame  Elizabeth  leave  her  own  children 


OLD   MADAME  17 

in  their  downy  nests,  and  hasten  to  ease  some 
child  going  out  of  the  world  on  the  horrible 
hoarse  breath  of  croup,  or  to  bring  other 
children  into  the  world  in  scorn  of  doctors 
three  miles  off. 

She  was  twenty-five  when  the  step-son  of 
her  father's  sister,  her  cousin  by  marriage  but 
not  by  blood,  appeared  to  fulfil  the  agree- 
ment of  their  parents,  to  take  effect  when  he 
should  finish  his  travels  —  which,  indeed,  he 
had  been  in  no  haste  to  end.  She  had  not 
been  without  suitors,  of  high  and  low  degree. 
Had  not  the  heir  of  the  Canadian  governor 
spoken  of  a  treaty  for  the  hand  of  this  fair 
princess  ?  Was  it  not  Ben  Benvoisie,  the 
bold  young  master  of  a  fishing-smack,  with 
whom  she  had  played  when  a  child,  who 
once  would  have  carried  her  off  to  sea  like 
any  Norse  pirate,  and  who  had  dared  to  leave 
his  kiss  red  on  her  lips?  Had  Elizabeth 
been  guilty  of  thinking  that,  had  she  been  a 
river-pilot's  daughter,  such  kisses  would  not 
come  amiss? 

Yet  long  ago  had  she  understood  that  she 
was  pledged  to  her  Cousin  Louis,  and  she 


i8  OLD    MADAME 

waited  for  his  coming.  His  eyes  were  as  blue 
as  hers  were  brown,  his  hair  as  black  as  hers 
was  red,  his  features  as  Greek  as  hers  were 
Norman,  his  stature  as  commanding  as  her 
own. 

"  Oh,  he  was  a  beauty,  my  Cousin  Louis 
was!"  she  used  to  say. 

She  never  called  him  her  lover,  nor  her 
husband — he  was  always  her  Cousin  Louis. 

"  So  you  have  come,  sir,"  she  said,  when 
he  stepped  ashore,  and  crossed  the  street  and 
met  her  at  the  gate,  and  would  have  kissed 
her  brow.  "  More  slowly,  sir,"  she  said, 
drawing  back.  "  You  have  come  to  win,  not 
to  wear.  Elizabeth  Chaslesmarie  Champer- 
noune  is  not  a  ribbon  or  a  rose,  to  be  tossed 
aside  and  picked  up  at  will." 

"  By  the  Lord  !  "  cried  Cousin  Louis.  "  If 
I  had  dreamed  she  were  the  rose  she  is,  the 
salt  seas  would  not  have  been  running  all 
these  years  between  me  and  her  sweetness  — 
and  her  thorns." 

"  This  is  no  court,  and  these  no  court- 
ladies,  Cousin  Louis,"  she  replied.  "  We  are 
plain  people,  used  only  to  plain  speeches." 


OLD   MADAME  19 

"  Plain,  indeed,"  said  Cousin  Louis.  "  Only 
Helen  of  Troy  was  plainer!  " 

"  Nor  do  flattering  words,"  she  said, "  well 
befit  those  whose  slow  coming  flatters  ill." 

But  the  smile  with  which  she  uttered  her 
somewhat  bitter  speech  was  of  enchanting 
good-humor,  and  Cousin  Louis  thought  his 
lines  had  fallen  in  pleasant  places. 

He  was  not  so  sure  of  it  when  a  month 
had  passed,  and  the  same  smile  sweetened 
an  icy  manner  still,  and  he  had  not  yet  been 
able,  in  the  rush  of  guests  that  surrounded 
her,  to  have  a  word  alone  with  Elizabeth.  He 
saw  that  jackanapes  of  a  young  West  Indian 
planter  bring  the  color  to  her  cheek  with  his 
whispered  word.  He  saw  her  stroll  down 
between  the  sycamores,  unattended  by  any 
save  Captain  Wentworth.  But  let  him  strive 
to  gain  her  ear  and  one  of  the  young  officers 
from  Fort  Chaslesmarie  was  sure  to  inter- 
cept him, —  strive  to  attend  her  walk,  and 
Dorothy  and  Jean  and  Margaret  and  Belle 
seemed  to  spring  from  the  ground  to  her 
side.  From  smiling  he  changed  to  sullen, 
and  from  sullen  to  savage  —  to  abuse  his 


20  OLD   MADAME 

folly,  to  abuse  her  coquetry,  to  wonder  if  he 
cared  enough  for  the  winning  of  her  to  en- 
dure these  indignities,  and  all  at  once  to  dis- 
cover that  this  month  had  taught  him  there 
was  but  one  woman  in  the  world  for  him, 
and  all  the  rest  were  shadows.  One  woman 
in  the  world, —  and  without  her,  life  was  so 
incomplete,  himself  so  halved,  that  death 
would  be  the  better  portion. 

How  then?  What  to  do?  Patience 
gave  up  the  siege.  He  was  thinking  of  des- 
perate measures  on  the  day  when,  moping 
around  the  shores  alone  in  a  boat,  he  espied 
them  riding  from  the  Beacon  Hill  down 
upon  the  broad  ferry-boat  that  crossed  the 
shallow  inlet.  How  his  heart  knocked  his 
sides  as  he  saw  that  pale,  dark  West  Indian, 
with  his  purple  velvet  corduroys,  and  his 
nankeen  jacket  and  jockey-cap,  riding  down 
beside  her, —  as  he  saw  Wentworth  spring 
from  the  stirrup  to  offer  a  palm  for  her  foot 
when  they  reached  the  door !  But  Cousin 
Louis  had  not  waited  for  that ;  he  had  put 
some  strength  to  his  strokes  and  was  at  the 
door  before  him,  was  at  her  side  before  him, 


OLD    MADAME  21 

compelling  his  withdrawal,  offering  no  palm 
to  tread  on,  but  reaching  up  and  grasping 
her  waist  with  his  two  hands. 

"  By  heaven ! "  he  murmured  then,  as 
Wentworth  was  beyond  hearing,  his  eyes 
blazing  on  hers.  "  What  man  do  you  think 
will  endure  this  ?  What  man  will  suffer 
this  suspense  in  which  you  keep  me  ?  " 

"  It  is  you,  Cousin  Louis,  who  are  keeping 
me  in  suspense,"  she  answered,  as  she  hung 
above  him  there. 

And  was  there  anything  in  her  arch  tone 
that  gave  him  hope  ?  He  released  her  then, 
but  when  an  hour  later  he  met  her  again, 
"  Very  well,"  he  said,  in  the  suppressed  key 
of  his  passion.  "  I  will  keep  you  in  the  sus- 
pense you  spoke  of  no  more.  You  will 
marry  me  this  day,  or  not  at  all.  By  my 
soul,  I  will  wait  no  longer  for  my  answer  !  " 

"  You  have  never  asked  me,  sir,  before," 
she  said.  "  How  could  you  have  an  answer  ? 
I  hardly  know  if  you  have  asked  me  now." 

But,  that  sunset,  with  Belle  and  Margaret 
and  Jean  and  Dorothy,  she  strolled  down  to 
the  little  church,  that  by  some  hidden  pass- 


22  OLD   MADAME 

word  was  half-filled  with  the  fishing-people 
and  her  servants.  And  when  she  came 
back,  she  was  leaning  on  Cousin  Louis's 
arm  very  differently  from  her  usual  habit, 
and  the  girls  were  going  on  before. 

"  If  I  had  known  this  Cossack  fashion  was 
the  way  to  win,"  Cousin  Louis  was  saying  — 
when  a  scream  from  Margaret  and  Belle  and 
Dorothy  and  Jean  rang  back  to  them,  and, 
hurrying  forward,  they  found  the  girls  with 
their  outcry  between  two  drawn  swords,  for 
Wentworth  and  the  West  Indian  had  come 
down  into  the  moonlit  glade  to  finish  a  sud- 
den quarrel  that  had  arisen  over  their  wine, 
as  to  the  preference  of  the  fair  chatelaine. 

"  Put  up  your  swords,  gentlemen,"  said 
Cousin  Louis,  with  his  proud,  happy  smile, 
"  unless  you  wish  to  measure  them  with  mine. 
It  would  be  folly  to  fight  about  nothing. 
And  there  is  no  such  person  as  Elizabeth 
Champernoune." 

The  men  turned  white  in  the  moonlight  to 
see  the  lovely  creature  standing  there,  and 
before  they  had  time  for  anger  or  amazement, 
Elizabeth  said  after  him : 


OLD   MADAME  23 

"  There  is  no  such  person  as  Elizabeth 
Champernoune.  She  married,  an  hour  ago, 
her  Cousin  Louis." 

Ah  me,  that  all  these  passions  now  should 
be  but  idle  air !  Perhaps  the  hearts  of  the 
gallants  swelled  and  sank  and  swelled  again, 
as  they  looked  at  her,  beautiful,  rosy  and 
glowing,  in  the  broad  white  beam  that  bathed 
her.  They  put  up  their  swords,  and  went  to 
the  house  and  drank  her  health  and  were 
rowed  away. 

Elizabeth  and  Cousin  Louis  settled  down  to 
their  long  life  of  promised  happiness,  in  the 
hospitality  of  an  open  hearth  around  which 
friends  and  children  clustered,  blest,  it  seemed, 
by  fortune  and  by  fate.  Gay  parties  came  and 
went  from  the  town  above,  from  larger  and 
more  distant  towns,  from  the  village  and  port 
across  the  bay.  Life  was  all  one  long,  sweet 
holiday.  What  pride  and  joy  was  theirs  when 
the  son  Chaslesmarie  was  born ;  what  tender 
bliss  Elizabeth's  when  the  velvet  face  of  the 
little  Louise  first  lay  beneath  her  own  and 
she  sank  away  with  her  into  a  land  of  downy 
dreams,  conscious  only  of  the  wings  of  love 


24  OLD   MADAME 

hovering  over  her !  How,  at  once,  as  child 
after  child  came,  they  seemed  to  turn  into 
water-nixies,  taking  to  the  sea  as  naturally  as 
the  gulls  flying  around  the  cliffs  !  How  each 
loiterer  in  the  village  would  make  the  children 
his  own,  teaching  them  every  prank  of  the 
waves,  taking  them  in  boats  far  beyond  the 
outer  light,  bringing  them  through  the  break- 
ers after  dark,  wrapped  in  great  pilot-coats 
and  drenched  with  foam !  She  never  knew 
what  was  fear  for  her  five  boys,  the  foster- 
brothers  of  all  the  other  children  in  the  vil- 
lage. Only  the  little  maiden  Louise,  pale  as 
the  rose  that  grew  beneath  the  oriel,  she  kept 
under  her  eye  as  she  might,  bringing  her  up 
in  fine  household  arts  and  delicate  accomplish- 
ments,—  ignorant  of  the  shadow  of  Ben  Ben- 
voisie  stalking  so  close  behind  as  to  darken 
all  her  work. 

Her  husband  had  taken  the  great  business 
that  Elizabeth's  people  had  so  long  carried 
on  through  their  glories  and  titles,  their  sol- 
diery and  war,  their  other  pursuits  if  they 
had  them  ;  his  warehouses  lined  the  shores ; 
the  offing  was  full  of  his  ships ;  he  owned 


OLD   MADAME  25 

almost  the  last  rod  of  land  on  the  island,  and 
much  along  the  main.  He  did  not  pretend 
to  maintain  the  state  of  the  old  baron ;  but 
to  be  a  guest  at  Chaslesmarie  was  to  live  a 
charmed  life  awhile.  He  was  a  man  of  singu- 
lar uprightness ;  as  he  grew  older  apt  to  bursts 
of  anger,  yet  to  Elizabeth  and  to  his  household 
he  was  gentleness  itself;  some  men  trembled 
at  the  sound  of  his  voice,  but  children  never 
did.  If  he  was  not  so  beloved  as  his  wife  by 
the  fishing-people,  it  was  because  he  was  not 
recognized  master  as  of  right,  and  because  he 
exacted  his  due,  although  tossing  it  in  the 
lap  of  the  next  needy  one.  But  he  was  a 
person  with  whom  no  other  took  a  liberty. 
"A  king  among  men,  was  my  Cousin  Louis," 
Old  Madame  used  to  say,  and  sigh  and  sigh 
and  sigh  again  as  she  said  it. 

But  the  hospitality  of  the  island  was  not  all 
that  of  pleasure  and  sumptuous  ease.  It  was 
a  place  easily  reached  by  sail  from  one  or 
more  of  the  great  towns,  by  boat  from  the 
town  above;  and  in  the  stirring  and  muttering 
of  political  discontent,  the  gentlemen  who  ap- 
peared and  disappeared  at  all  hours  of  the 


26  OLD   MADAME 

day,  and  as  often  by  night,  folded  in  cloaks 
wet  with  the  salt  sea  spray,  wore  spurs  at  their 
heels  and  swords  at  their  sides  to  some  pur- 
pose. And  when  at  last  war  came —  Horror 
of  horrors,  what  was  this !  Cousin  Louis  and 
his  island  had  renounced  allegiance  to  the 
crown,  and  had  taken  the  side  of  the  colo- 
nial rebels  and  the  Continental  Congress. 

"We ! "  cried  Elizabeth,  who  knew  little  of 
such  things,  and  had  a  vague  idea  that  they 
owed  fealty  still  to  that  throne  at  whose  foot 
her  grandfather  had  knelt.  "We,  whom  the 
King  of  France  ennobled  and  enriched ! " 

"And  for  that  price  were  we  sold  ere  we 
were  born,  and  do  we  stay  slaves  handed 
about  from  one  ruler  to  another?"  her  hus- 
band answered  her.  "  We  have  ennobled  and 
enriched  ourselves.  We  have  twice  and  thrice 
repaid  the  kings  of  France  in  tribute  money. 
Soon  shall  the  kings  of  France  go  the  way 
of  all  the  world — may  the  kings  of  Britain 
follow  them  !  Henceforth,  the  people  put 
on  the  crown.  I  believe  in  the  rights  of 
man.  I  live  under  no  tyranny  —  but  yours," 
he  said  gayly. 


OLD   MADAME  27 

"A  Chaslesmarie  !  A  Champernoune  !  " 
Elizabeth  was  saying  to  herself,  heedless  of 
his  smile. 

"  We  are  an  insignificant  islet,"  her  husband 
urged.  "  The  kings  of  France  have  betrayed 
us.  The  kings  of  Britain  have  oppressed  us. 
We  renounce  the  one.  We  defy  the  other!" 
And  he  ran  the  flag  under  which  the  rebels 
fought,  up  the  staff  at  Chaslesmarie,  and  it  was 
to  be  seen  at  the  peak  of  all  his  brigantines 
and  sloops  that,  leaving  their  legitimate  affairs, 
armed  themselves  and  scoured  the  seas,  and 
brought  their  prizes  into  port.  But  freely  as 
this  wealth  came  in,  as  freely  it  went  out ;  for 
Cousin  Louis  did  nothing  by  the  halves.  And 
heart  and  soul  being  in  the  matter,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  not  one  guinea  of  the  gold  his 
sailors  brought  him  in,  during  that  long  strug- 
gle, remained  to  him  at  its  close. 

It  was  during  this  struggle  that,  when  one 
day  the  sloop  "  Adder's- tongue  "  sailed,  the 
elder  son  of  Ben  Benvoisie  —  who  had  long 
since  married  a  fisherman's  daughter  —  was 
found  on  board,  a  stowaway.  Great  was 
Ben  Benvoisie's  wrath  when  he  missed  his 


28  OLD   MADAME 

son ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  done. 
He  rejected  Cousin  Louis'  regrets  with 
scorn.  But  when  the  sloop  brought  in  her 
prizes,  and  the  first  man  ashore  told  him  his 
son  had  died  of  some  ailment  before  he 
sighted  an  enemy,  then  his  rage  rose  in 
a  flame,  he  towered  like  an  angry  god,  and 
standing  on  the  head  of  the  wharf,  in  the 
presence  of  all  the  people,  he  cursed  Cousin 
Louis,  root  and  branch,  at  home  and  abroad, 
—  a  black  cloud  full  of  bursting  lightnings 
rising  behind  him  as  he  spoke,  as  if  he  had 
a  confederate  in  evil  powers, —  cursed  him  in 
wild  and  stinging  words  that  made  the  blood 
run  cold,  that  cut  Cousin  Louis  to  the  heart, 
that,  when  they  were  repeated  to  her,  made 
even  Elizabeth  turn  faint  and  sick.  "  There 
is  a  strange  second-sight  with  those  Benvoi- 
sies,"  she  said.  "  God  grant  his  curses 
come  to  naught."  But  she  seldom  saw 
him  at  a  distance  without  an  instant's 
prayer,  and  she  knew  that  the  fishing-people 
always  after  that  sight  of  him,  standing  there 
at  the  head  of  the  wharf,  with  his  blazing 
eyes  and  streaming  hair,  and  the  rain  and 


OLD   MADAME  29 

the  lightning  and  thunder  volleying  around 
him,  held  some  superstitions  of  their  own 
regarding  the  evil  eye  of  the  Benvoisies,  and 
kept  silent  watch  to  see  what  would  come 
of  it  all. 

But  the  war  at  last  was  ended,  the  world 
was  trying  to  regain  its  equilibrium,  and 
continental  money  was  at  hand  on  every 
side,  and  little  other.  Cousin  Louis,  who 
had  faith  in  the  new  republic,  believed  with 
an  equally  hot  head  in  its  own  good  faith, 
and  sent  word  far  and  near  that  he  would 
redeem  the  current  paper,  dollar  for  dollar 
in  gold.  And  he  did  so.  There  were  bar- 
rels of  it  in  his  warehouse  garrets,  and  his 
grandchildren  had  it  to  play  with.  "It  is 
Ben  Benvoisie's  word,"  said  Elizabeth,  when 
they  saw  the  mistake.  But  Cousin  Louis 
laughed  and  kissed  her,  and  said  it  had  sunk 
treasure,  to  be  sure,  but  asked  if  Ben  Ben- 
voisie's word  was  to  outweigh  his  fisheries 
and  fleets  and  warehouses  and  hay-lands  — 
his  splendid  boys,  his  girl  Louise !  And 
he  caught  the  shrinking,  slender  creature  to 
his  heart  as  he  spoke  —  this  lovely  young 


30  OLD   MADAME 

Louise,  as  fair  and  fragile  as  a  lily  on  its 
stem,  whom  he  loved  as  he  loved  his  life, 
his  flower-girl,  as  he  called  her,  just  blos- 
soming into  girlhood,  with  the  pale  rose-tint 
on  her  cheek,  and  her  eyes  like  the  bee-lark- 
spur. How  was  he,  absorbed  in  his  count- 
ing-room, forgetful  at  his  dinner-table,  taking 
his  pleasures  with  guests,  with  gayeties,  to 
know  that  his  slip  of  a  girl,  not  yet  sixteen, 
met  a  handsome  hazel-eyed  lad  at  the  foot 
of  the  long  garden  every  night, —  Ben  Ben- 
voisie  the  third, —  and  had  promised  to  go 
with  him,  his  wife,  in  boy's  clothes,  when- 
ever the  fruiter  was  ready  for  sea  again ! 
But  old  Ben  Benvoisie  knew  it.  And  he 
could  not  forbear  his  savage  jeer.  And  the 
end  was  that  Cousin  Louis,  at  the  foot  of 
the  long  garden  one  night,  put  a  bullet 
through  young  Ben  Benvoisie's  arm,  and 
carried  off  his  fainting  girl  to  her  room  that 
she  showed  no  wish  to  leave  again.  "  She 
will  die,"  said  Cousin  Louis,  one  day  toward 
the  year's  close,  "  if  we  do  not  give  way." 

"  She  would  better,"  said  Elizabeth,  who 
knew  what  the  misery  of  her  child's  marriage 


OLD   MADAME  31 

with  old  Ben  Benvoisie's  son  must  needs  be 
when  the  first  glamour  of  young  passion 
should  be  over. 

And  she  did.  And  Cousin  Louis'  heart 
went  down  into  the  grave  with  her. 

"  It  is  not  only  old  Ben  Benvoisie's 
word,"  said  Elizabeth.  "  It  is  his  hand." 

Her  secret  tears  were  bitter  for  the  child, 
but  not  so  bitter  as  they  would  have  been 
had  she  first  passed  into  old  Ben  Benvoisie's 
power,  and  been  made  the  instrument  for 
humbling  the  pride  and  breaking  the  heart 
daily  of  her  brothers  Chaslesmarie  and  Cham- 
pernoune,  and  of  the  hated  owner  of  the 
"  Adder's-tongue,"  had  she  lived  to  smart  and 
suffer  under  the  difference  between  the  rude 
race  reared  in  a  fishing-hut,  and  that  reared 
in  the  mansion  of  her  ancestors.  Perhaps 
Old  Madame  never  saw  the  thing  fairly ;  it 
always  seemed  to  her  that  Louise  died  of 
some  disease  incident  to  childhood.  "  I  have 
my  boys  left,"  said  Elizabeth.  "And  no 
one  can  disturb  my  little  grave." 

It  was  two  graves  the  second  year  after. 
For  Chaslesmarie,  her  first-born  and  her  dar- 


32  OLD   MADAME 

ling,  whose  baby  kisses  had  been  sweeter 
than  her  lover's,  the  life  in  whose  little  limbs 
and  whose  delicious  flesh  had  been  dearer 
than  her  own,  his  bright  head  now  brighter 
for  the  fresh  laurels  of  Harvard, —  Chasles- 
marie,  riding  down  from  the  Beacon  Hill, 
where  he  had  gone  to  see  the  fishing-fleet 
make  sail,  was  thrown  from  his  horse,  and 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  tell  who  was  the 
man  starting  from  the  covert  of  bayberry- 
bushes.  But  Elizabeth  carried  a  stout  heart 
and  a  high  head.  She  could  not,  if  she 
would,  have  bent  as  Cousin  Louis  did,  nor 
did  the  proud  serenity  leave  her  eye,  although 
his  darkened  with  a  sadness  never  lightened. 
None  knew  her  pangs,  nor  saw  the  tears 
that  stained  her  pillow  in  the  night;  she 
would,  if  she  could,  have  hid  her  suffering 
from  herself.  She  began  to  feel  a  terrible 
assurance  that  she  was  fighting  fate  ;  —  but 
she  would  make  a  hard  fight  of  it.  Con- 
scious of  her  integrity  of  purpose,  of  the 
justice  of  her  claims,  of  her  right  to  the 
children  she  had  borne,  there  was  something 
in  her  of  the  spirit  of  the  ancients  who 


OLD    MADAME  33 

dared,  if  not  defy  the  gods,  yet  accept  the 
combat  offered  by  them.  Champernoune 
was  the  heir  instead,  that  was  all.  Then 
there  were  the  twin  boys,  Max  and  Rex,  two 
lawless  young  souls  ;  and  the  youngest  of 
all,  St.  Jean,  whose  head  always  wore  a  halo 
in  Elizabeth's  eyes.  With  these,  why  should 
she  grieve  ?  Now  she  was  also  the  mother 
of  angels  ! 

Again,  after  a  while,  the  frequent  festivities 
filled  the  house,  and  the  great  gold  and 
silver  plate  glittered  in  the  dark  dining-room 
and  filled  it,  at  every  touch,  with  melodious 
and  tremulous  vibrations.  Now  the  Legis- 
lature of  the  State,  one  and  all,  attended  a 
grand  banqueting  there,  now  the  Governor 
and  his  Council ;  now  navy-yard  and  fort 
and  town,  and  far-ofT  towns,  came  to  the 
balls  that  did  not  end  even  with  the  bright 
outdoor  breakfast,  but  ran  into  the  next 
night's  dancing,  and  a  whole  week's  gayety. 
Now  it  was  boating  and  bathing  in  the  creeks; 
now  it  was  sailing  out  beyond  the  last  lights 
with  music  and  flowers  and  cheer;  and  all 
the  time  it  was  splendor  and  sumptuousness 


34  OLD   MADAME 

and  life  at  the  breaking  crest.  And  Eliza- 
beth led  the  dance,  the  stateliest  of  the 
stately,  the  most  beautiful  still  of  the  beau- 
tiful. And  if  sometimes  she  saw  old  Ben 
Benvoisie's  eyes,  as  he  leaned  over  the  gate 
and  looked  at  her  a  moment  within  the 
gardens  and  among  her  roses,  it  was  not  to 
shudder  at  them.  What  possessed  Eliza- 
beth in  those  days  ?  She  only  felt  that  the 
currents  of  her  blood  must  sweep  along  in 
this  mad  way,  or  the  heart  would  stop. 

Then  came  Champernoune's  wedding, — 
he  and  that  friend  whom  the  chief  magistrate 
of  the  land  delighted  to  honor,  marrying 
sisters  in  one  night.  How  lovely,  how 
gracious,  how  young  the  bride  !  Was  it  at 
Gonaives  that  year  that  she  died  dancing? 
Was  it  at  Gonaives  that  the  yellow-fever 
buried  Champernoune  in  the  common 
trench  ? 

Elizabeth  was  coming  up  the  landing  from 
the  boat,  her  little  negro  dwarf  carrying  her 
baskets,  when  the  news  reached  her  quick 
senses,  as  the  one  that  spoke  it  meant  it 
should.  She  staggered  and  fell.  The  doctors 


OLD   MADAME  35 

came  to  bind  up  the  broken  bones,  and  only 
when  they  said,  "  At  last  it  is  quite  right ; 
but,  dear  lady,  your  dancing  days  are  over," 
did  any  see  her  tears.  She  had  buried  her 
only  girl,  her  first-born  boy,  her  married 
heir,  without  great  signs  of  sorrow.  She  had 
plunged  into  a  burning  house  in  the  village 
once,  gathering  her  gauzy  skirts  about  her, 
to  bring  out  the  little  Louise  whom  an  un- 
faithful nurse  had  taken  there  and  forsaken 
in  her  fright.  She  had  waded,  torch  in  hand, 
into  the  wildly  rolling  surf  of  a  starless  night 
to  clutch  the  bow  of  Chaslesmarie's  boat  that 
was  sweeping  helplessly  to  the  breaker  with 
the  unskilled  child  at  the  helm.  She  had 
shut  herself  up  with  Champernoune,  when 
Ben  Benvoisie  brought  back  the  small-pox 
to  the  village,  and  had  suffered  no  one  to 
minister  to  him  but  herself.  And  when  the 
dog  all  thought  mad  tore  Cousin  Louis' 
arm,  she  herself  had  sucked  the  poison  from 
the  wound. 

Yet  with  that  sentence,  that  absurd  little 
sentence,  that  her  dancing  days  were  over,  it 
seemed  all  at  once  to  Elizabeth  that  every- 


36  OLD   MADAME 

thing  else  was  over,  too.  With  Champer- 
noune  now  everything  else  had  gone  —  state 
and  splendor,  peace  and  pleasure,  hospitality 
and  home  and  hearth,  and  all  the  rest.  All 
things  had  been  possible  to  her,  the  mastery 
of  her  inner  joy  itself  in  one  form  or  an- 
other, while  she  held  her  forces  under  her. 
But  now  she  herself  was  stricken,  and  who 
was  to  fight  for  them  ?  Who,  when  the  stars 
in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera ! 

But  as  wild  as  the  grief  of  Cousin  Louis 
was,  hers  was  as  still,  though  there  were 
ashes  on  her  heart.  She  went  about  with  a 
cane  when  she  got  up,  unable  to  step  a  min- 
uet or  bend  a  knee  in  prayer.  "  But  see," 
cried  old  Ben  Benvoisie  to  himself,  "  her 
head  is  just  as  high !  " 

Not  so  with  Cousin  Louis.  He  sat  in 
his  counting-room,  his  face  bent  on  his  hands 
half  the  time.  Cargoes  came  in  unheeded, 
reports  were  made  him  unregarded,  ships  lay 
at  the  wharf  unloaded,  the  state  of  the  mar- 
ket did  not  concern  him  —  nothing  seemed 
of  any  matter  but  those  three  graves.  Then 
he  roused  himself  to  a  spasmodic  activity, 


OLD   MADAME  37 

gave  orders  here  and  orders  there,  but  his 
mind  was  otherwhere.  With  the  striking  of 
the  year's  balance  he  had  made  bad  bargains, 
taken  bad  debts,  sent  out  bad  men  with  his 
fleets,  brought  in  his  fares  and  his  fruits  and 
foreign  goods  at  a  bad  season,  lost  the  labor 
of  years.  A  fire  had  reduced  a  great  prop- 
erty elsewhere  to  ashes;  a  storm  had  scattered 
and  destroyed  his  southern  ships.  "  Some- 
thing must  be  done,"  said  Cousin  Louis. 
And  he  looked  back  from  his  counting-room, 
on  the  fair  mansion  from  whose  windows  he 
had  so  long  heard  song  and  laughter  float- 
ing, with  its  gardens  round  about  it,  where 
the  sweet-briar  and  the  tall  white  rose  climbed 
and  looked  down  at  the  red  rose  blushing  at 
their  feet,  where  the  honeysuckles  shed  their 
fragrance,  where  the  great  butterflies  waved 
their  wings  over  all  the  sweet  old-fashioned 
flowers  that  had  been  brought  from  the  gar- 
dens of  France  and  summer  after  summer 
had  bloomed  and  spiced  the  air,  where  the 
golden  robins  flashed  from  bough  to  bough 
of  the  lane  of  plum-trees,  and  the  sunshine 
lay  vivid  on  the  encircling  velvet  verdure- 


898575 


38  OLD    MADAME 

"  Her  home,  and  the  home  of  her  people 
for  a  century  behind  her  —  the  people  whose 
blood  in  her  veins  went  to  make  her  what 
she  is  —  noblest  woman,  sweetest  wife,  that 
ever  made  a  man's  delight.  The  purest, 
proudest,  loftiest  soul  that  looks  heaven  in 
the  face.  O  God,  bless  her,  my  dear  wife  — 
dearer  than  when  I  wooed  you  or  when  I 
wedded  you,  by  all  the  long  increase  of  years  ! 
Something  must  be  done,"  said  Cousin  Louis, 
"  or  that  will  go  with  the  rest." 

Perhaps  Cousin  Louis  began  to  forefeel  the 
future  then.  Certainly,  as  a  little  time  passed 
on,  an  unused  timidity  overwhelmed  him. 
Against  Elizabeth's  advice  he  began  to  call 
in  various  moneys  from  here  and  there  where 
they  were  gathering  more  to  themselves. 
"  There  is  to  be  another  war  with  the  British," 
he  said.  "  We  must  look  to  our  fortunes." 
But  he  would  not  have  any  interference  with 
their  way  of  life,  the  way  Elizabeth  had  al- 
ways lived.  There  must  still  be  the  dinner 
to  the  judges,  the  supper  to  the  clergy,  the 
frequent  teas  to  the  ladies  of  the  fort,  the 
midsummer  throng  of  young  people,  the 


OLD   MADAME  39 

house  full  for  the  Christmas  holidays ;  Max 
and  Rex  were  to  be  thought  of,  St.  Jean  was 
not  to  grow  up  remembering  a  house  of 
mourning.  Why  had  no  one  told  them  that, 
in  all  the  festive  season  before  Champer- 
noune's  death,  the  younger  boys  not  being 
held  then  to  strict  account,  old  Ben  Benvoisie, 
sitting  with  them  on  the  sea-beaten  rocks,  had 
fired  their  fancy  with  stories  of  the  wild  sea- 
life  that  had  blanched  his  hair  and  furrowed 
his  face  before  the  time  ?  One  day  St.  Jean 
came  in  to  break  the  news:  Max  and  Rex 
had  run  away  to  sea.  "  I  should  have  liked 
to  go,"  said  St.  Jean,  "but  I  could  not  leave 
my  mother  so." 

"  By  the  gods  !  "  said  his  father.  "  You 
shall  go  master  of  the  best  ship  I  have ! " 
And  in  due  time  he  sent  him  supercargo  to 
the  East,  that  he  might  learn  all  that  a  lad 
who  had  tumbled  about  among  ropes  and 
blocks  and  waves  and  rocks,  ever  since  his 
birth,  did  not  already  know.  But  he  for- 
bade his  wife  to  repeat  to  him  the  names  of 
Rex  and  Max ;  nor  would  they  ever  again 
have  been  mentioned  in  his  presence  but  for 


4o  OLD    MADAME 

the  report  of  a  ship  that  had  spoken  the 
craft  they  took,  and  learned  that  it  had  been 
overhauled,  and  Max,  of  whom  nothing 
more  was  ever  heard,  pressed  into  the  Brit- 
ish service,  and  Rex,  ordered  aloft  on  a 
stormy  night,  had  fallen  from  the  yard  into 
the  sea,  and  his  grave  was  rolled  between 
two  waves. 

As  Elizabeth  came  home  from  the  little 
church  —  the  first  time  she  went  out  after 
this — thinking,  as  she  went,  of  the  twilight 
when  she  found  Champernoune,  who  had 
stolen  from  the  lightsome  scenes  that  greeted 
him  and  his  young  bride,  to  stand  a  little 
while  beside  the  grave  where  his  brother 
Chaslesmarie  slept  —  she  met  old  Ben  Ben- 
voisie. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  you  know  how  good  it 
is  yourself." 

"  Is  not  the  curse  fulfilled,  Ben  Benvoisie  ? " 
she  demanded.  "Are  you  going  to  spare 
me  none  ?  " 

"  None,"  said  Ben  Benvoisie. 

The  servants  were  running  toward  her 
when  she  reached  the  house.  The  master 


OLD    MADAME  41 

had  a  stroke.  A  stroke  indeed.  He  sat  in 
his  chair  a  year,  head  and  face  white,  speaking 
of  nothing  but  his  children's  graves,  they 
thought.  "  Too  cold  —  too  damp.  Why  did 
I  bury  there?"  he  murmured.  "  I  will  go 
have  them  up,"  he  said.  "  Oh,  why  did  I 
bury  so  deep  —  cold  —  cold — Elizabeth!" 
But  when  Elizabeth  answered  him,  the  thing 
he  would  say  had  gone,  and  when  he  died  at 
last,  for  all  his  struggle  for  speech,  it  was 
still  unspoken. 

Ah,  what  a  year  was  that  when  the  long 
strain  was  over,  and  she  placed  him  where 
she  was  to  lie  herself,  at  her  father's  feet ! 
Things  went  on  as  they  would  that  year. 
Wrapped  in  an  ashen  apathy,  Elizabeth 
hardly  knew  she  breathed,  and  living  less  at 
that  time  in  this  world  than  the  other,  the 
things  of  this  world  had  small  concern  for 
her.  Born,  too,  and  reared  in  wealth,  she 
could  as  easily  have  understood  that  there 
was  any  other  atmosphere  about  her  as  any 
other  condition ;  and  the  rogues,  then,  had  it 
all  their  own  way.  Suits  for  western  lands 
that  were  the  territorial  possessions  of  princes 


42  OLD    MADAME 

were  compromised  for  sums  she  never  saw ; 
blocks  of  city  houses  were  sold  for  taxes ; 
heaven  knows  what  else  was  done,  what 
rights  were  signed  away  on  papers  brought 
for  her  name  as  administratrix.  And  when 
St.  Jean  came  home  from  sea,  where  were  the 
various  moneys  that  his  father  had  been  call- 
ing in  for  so  long  a  time  ?  There  was  not  a 
penny  of  them  accounted  for. 

St.  Jean  was  a  man  before  his  time.  He 
looked  about  him.  The  great  business  had 
gone  to  the  dogs,  and  some  of  the  clerks 
and  factors  had  gone  with  it ;  at  least,  they 
too  had  disappeared.  Other  men,  in  other 
places,  had  taken  advantage  of  the  lapse,  es- 
tablished other  houses,  opened  other  fish- 
eries, stolen  their  markets.  There  was  not 
enough  of  either  fleet  left  in  condition  to 
weather  a  gale.  "  It  has  all  been  at  the  top 
of  the  wave,"  said  St.  Jean,  "  and  now  we 
are  in  the  trough  of  the  sea."  But  he  had 
his  ship,  the  "  Great-heart,"  and  with  that  he 
set  about  redeeming  his  fortunes.  And  his 
first  step  was  to  bring  home  to  his  mother  a 
daughter-in-law  as  proud  as  she  —  Hope, 


OLD   MADAME  43 

the  orphan  of  a  West  Indian  prelate,  with 
no  fortune  but  her  face,  and  with  manners 
that  Elizabeth  thought  unbecoming  so  pen- 
niless a  woman. 

When  St.  Jean  went  away  to  sea  again, 
he  established  his  wife  —  Little  Madame, 
the  people  had  styled  her  —  in  a  home  of 
her  own.  For  large  as  the  Mansion  was,  it 
was  not  large  enough  to  hold  those  two 
women :  a  home  in  a  long  low  stone  house 
that  belonged  to  the  estate  and  had  once 
been  two  or  three  houses  together, —  at 
which  one  looked  twice,  you  might  say,  to 
see  if  it  were  dwelling  or  bowlder, —  and 
which  he  renovated  and  then  filled  with 
some  of  the  spare  pictures  and  furnishings 
of  the  Mansion-house.  And  there  Hope 
lived,  cheered  Elizabeth  as  she  could,  and 
cared  for  the  children  that  came  to  her. 
And  how  many  came  !  And  Elizabeth,  who 
could  never  feel  that  Hope  had  quite  the 
right  to  a  place  as  her  rival  in  St.  Jean's 
affections,  took  these  little  children  to  her 
heart,  if  she  could  not  yet  altogether  take 
their  mother ;  and  they  filled  for  her  many 


44  OLD   MADAME 

a  weary  hour  of  St.  Jean's  absences  on  his 
long  voyages, —  St.  Jean  who,  in  some  mi- 
raculous way,  now  represented  to  her  father 
and  husband  and  son. 

Elizabeth  had  time  enough  for  the  little 
people ;  for  friends  did  not  disturb  her  much 
after  the  first  visits  of  condolence.  Trouble 
had  come  to  many  of  them,  as  well.  Doro- 
thy and  Margaret  and  Belle  and  Jean,  and 
their  compeers,  were  scattered  and  dead  and 
absorbed  and  forgetful,  and  she  summoned 
none  of  them  about  her  any  more  with 
music  and  feasting.  Of  all  her  wealth  now 
nothing  remained  but  a  part  of  the  land  on 
the  island  and  the  adjoining  main,  with  its 
slight  and  fickle  revenue.  Of  all  her  con- 
course of  servants  there  were  only  Phillis 
and  Scip,  who  would  have  thought  them- 
selves transferred  to  some  other  world  had 
they  left  Old  Madame. 

But  the  Mansion  of  Chaslemarie  was  a 
place  of  pleasure  to  the  children  still,  at  any 
rate ;  and  the  little  swarm  spent  many  an 
hour  in  the  old  box-bordered  garden,  where 
the  stately  lady  walked  on  Phillis's  arm,  and 


OLD   MADAME  45 

in  the  great  hall  where  she  told  them  the 
history  of  each  of  the  personages  of  the  tall 
portraits,  from  that  of  the  fierce  old  Chasles- 
marie  of  all  down  to  the  angel-faced  child 
St.  Jean ;  told  them,  not  as  firing  pride  with 
memories  of  ancient  pride,  but  as  storied  in- 
cidents of  family  life ;  and  as  she  told  them 
she  lived  over  her  share  in  them,  and  place 
and  race  and  memories  seemed  only  a  part 
of  herself. 

"  Madame,"  said  St.  Jean  once,  when  at 
home, —  no  child  of  hers  had  often  called 
her  mother, —  "  I  think  if  we  sold  the  place 
and  moved  away  we  would  do  well.  The 
soil  is  used  up,  the  race  is  run  out  —  if  we 
transplanted  and  made  new  stock  ?  Here  is 
no  chance  to  educate  the  children  or  to  re- 
build our  fortunes  now.  Somewhere  else, 
it  may  be,  I  could  put  myself  in  better  busi- 
ness connection  — " 

The  gaze  of  his  mother's  burning  black 
eyes  bade  him  to  silence,,  She  felt  as  if  in 
that  moment  he  had  forsworn  his  ancestors. 

"  Leave  this  place  of  whose  dust  we  are 
made  !  "  she  cried.  "  Or  is  it  made  of  the 


46  OLD   MADAME 

dust  of  the  Chaslesmaries  ?  And  how  short- 
sighted —  here,  where,  at  least,  we  reign ! 
Never  shall  we  leave  it !  See,  St.  Jean,  it  is 
all  yours,"  —  and  from  command  her  voice 
took  on  entreaty,  and  how  could  St.  Jean 
resist  the  pleading  mother  !  He  went  away 
to  sea  again,  and  left  all  as  before. 

But  the  earth  had  moved  to  Elizabeth 
with  just  one  thrill  and  tremor.  The  idea, 
the  possibility,  of  leaving  the  place  into 
which  every  fibre  of  her  being  was  wrought 
had  shaken  her.  It  was  a  sort  of  conscious 
death  into  whose  blackness  she  looked  for 
one  moment  —  so  one  might  feel  about  to 
lose  identity.  She  walked  through  the 
rooms  with  their  quaint  and  rich  furnish- 
ing, sombre  and  heavy,  their  gilded  panels, 
their  carved  wainscot,  the  old  French  por- 
traits of  her  people  that  looked  down  on 
her  and  seemed  to  claim  her ;  she  paused  in 
the  oriel  of  the  yellow  drawing-room,  where 
it  always  seemed  like  a  sunshiny  afternoon 
in  an  October  beech-wood  —  paused,  and 
looked  across  the  bay. 

There    gleamed    the    battlements    of    the 


OLD   MADAME  47 

fort  that  her  grandfather,  the  baron,  had 
built ;  there  was  the  church  below,  there  was 
the  tomb,  among  the  graves  of  those  whose 
powers  had  come  to  their  flower  in  him ; 
the  grassy  knoll,  beyond,  gleamed  in  the 
gold  of  the  slant  sun  and  reminded  her  of 
the  days  when,  a  child,  she  used  to  watch 
the  last  glint  on  the  low  swells  of  the  graves, 
across  the  blue  waters  of  the  bay  whose 
rocky  islets  rose  red  with  the  rust  of  the 
tides.  Far  out,  the  seas  were  breaking  in 
a  white  line  over  the  low  red  ledge,  and, 
farther  still,  the  lighthouse  on  the  dim  old 
Wrecker's  Reef  was  kindling  its  spark  to 
answer  the  light  on  the  head  of  Chaslesmarie 
that  her  grandfather  had  first  hung  in  the 
air.  Close  at  hand,  a  boat  made  in,  piled 
high  at  either  end  with  the  brown  sea-weed, 
the  fishing-sails  were  flitting  here  and  there, 
as  there  had  never  been  a  day  when  they 
were  not ;  and  the  whole,  bathed  with  the 
deepening  sunset  glow,  glittered  in  peace 
and  beauty.  There  had  not  been  ten  days 
in  all  her  life  when  she  had  not  looked  upon 
the  scene.  No,  no,  no !  As  well  give  up 


48  OLD    MADAME 

life  itself,  for  this  was  all  there  was  of  life  to 
her.  There  was  the  shore  where,  when  a 
child,  she  found  the  bed  of  garnets  that  the 
next  tide  washed  away.  Here  could  she  just 
remember  having  seen  the  glorious  old 
Baron  Chaslesmarie,  with  his  men-at-arms 
about  him.  Here  had  her  dear  father 
proudly  walked,  with  his  air  of  inflexible 
justice,  and  the  wind  had  seized  his  black 
robes  and  swept  them  about  her,  running  at 
his  side.  Here  had  her  mother  died.  Here 
had  she  first  seen  the  superb  patrician  beauty 
of  her  husband's  face  when  he  came  from 
France,  with  his  head  full  of  Jean  Jacques 
and  the  rights  of  man.  Here  was  the  little 
chapel  where  they  married,  the  linden  avenue 
up  which  they  strolled,  with  the  branches 
shaking  out  fragrance  and  star-beams  to- 
gether above  them  —  the  first  hour,  the  first 
delightful  hour,  they  ever  were  alone  to- 
gether, she  and  her  cousin  Louis.  Oh,  here 
had  been  her  life  with  him  —  a  husband  ten- 
derer than  a  lover,  a  man  whose  loftiness 
lifted  his  race  and  taught  her  how  upright 
other  men  might  be,  a  soul  so  pure  that  the 


OLD   MADAME  49 

light  of  God  seemed  to  shine  through  it 
upon  her !  Here  had  been  her  joys,  here 
had  been  her  sorrows ;  here  had  she  put  her 
love  away  and  heard  the  moulds  ring  down 
on  that  dear  head  ;  here  had  the  world  dark- 
ened to  her,  here  should  it  darken  to  her 
forever  when  all  the  shadows  of  the  grave 
lengthened  around  her.  Father  and  mother, 
husband  and  child,  race  and  land,  they  were 
all  in  this  spot.  These  people,  all  of  whom 
she  knew  by  name,  were  they  not  like  her 
own  ?  Could  the  warmth  of  the  blood  bring 
much  nearer  to  her  these  faces  that  had  sur- 
rounded her  since  time  begun  —  these  men 
and  women  whose  lives  she  had  ordered, 
whose  children  had  been  fostered  with  her 
children,  who  half-worshipped  her  in  her  girl- 
hood, who  half-worshipped  her  still  as  Old 
Madame?  Could  she  leave  them?  Not 
though  St.  Jean's  "  Great-heart  "  went  down, 
—  St.  Jean's  ship  for  which  Hope  on  her 
house-top  sat  so  long  watching.  "  I  refuse 
to  think  of  it,"  she  said.  "It  is  infinitely 
tiresome."  And  then  the  children  trooped 
in  and  stopped  further  soliloquy ;  and  she 


5o  OLD    MADAME 

let  them  dress  themselves  out  in  her  stiff  old 
brocades  that  had  been  sent  for  just  after 
she  married  and  had  never  needed  to  be 
renewed, —  the  cloth-of-silver  and  peach- 
bloom,  the  flowered  Venetian,  the  gold-shot 
white  paduasoy ;  she  liked  to  see  the  pretty 
Barbara  and  Helena  and  Bess  prancing 
about  the  shining  floors,  holding  up  the 
long  draperies,  and  she  would  have  decked 
them  out  in  her  old  silver-set  jewels,  too, 
had  they  not  been  parted  with  long  since 
when  Cousin  Louis  was  calling  in  their 
moneys.  It  all  renewed  her  youth  so 
sweetly,  if  so  sadly,  and  the  mimic  play  in 
some  obscure  way  making  her  feel  they  only 
played  at  life,  relieved  her  of  a  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility regarding  their  real  life.  When 
they  tired  of  their  finery,  she  led  them 
down,  as  usual,  before  the  portrait  of  this 
one  and  of  that,  and  told  over  the  old  sto- 
ries they  liked  to  hear. 

"  Madame,"  said  little  Barbara,  lifting  her 
stiff  peach-blossom  draperies,  "why  is  it 
always  'then,' — why  is  it  never  {  now  '  ?  " 

But  the  old  dame's  heart  did  not  once  cry 


OLD   MADAME  51 

Ichabod.  To  her  the  glory  never  had  de- 
parted. It  was  as  imperishable  as  sky  and 
air. 

It  was  the  threatened  war-time  again  at 
last;  and  Hope,  with  her  sweet  soft  eyes 
watching  from  the  house-top,  saw  her  hus- 
band's ship  come  in,  and  with  it  its  consort 
— just  a  day  too  late.  The  embargo  had 
been  declared,  and  he  hailed  from  a  for- 
bidden port.  Other  sailors  touched  other 
ports  and  took  out  false  papers  for  protection. 
St.  Jean  scorned  the  act.  He  relied  on  pub- 
lic justice  :  he  relied  on  a  reed.  His  cargoes 
were  confiscated,  and  his  ships  were  left  at 
the  wharf  to  rot  before  he  could  get  hearing. 
In  those  two  vessels  was  the  result  of  his 
years  of  storm  and  calm,  nights  when  the 
ship  was  heavy  by  the  head  with  ice,  days 
when  her  seamy  sides  were  scorched  and 
blistered  by  the  sun,  the  best  part  of  his 
life.  And  gone  because  he  preferred  pov- 
erty to  perjury. 

"  Better  so,"  said  Old  Madame.  "  I  am 
prouder  of  my  penniless  son  than  of  any  mer- 
chant prince  with  a  false  oath  on  his  soul." 


52  OLD   MADAME 

And  her  own  contentment  seemed  to  her  all 
that  could  be  asked.  She  never  thought  of 
regretting  the  matter ;  but  she  despised  the 
General  Government  more  than  ever,  and 
would  have  shown  blue-lights  to  the  enemy, 
had  he  been  near  and  wanted  a  channel,  were 
it  not  that  he  was  Cousin  Louis'  enemy  as 
well. 

Alas !  a  bitterer  enemy  was  near.  One 
tempestuous  winter's  night  the  minute-guns 
were  heard  off  Wrecker's  Reef, —  and  who 
but  St.  Jean  must  lead  the  rescue  ?  Hope, 
cloaked  and  on  her  house-top,  with  the  glass 
saw  it  all ;  saw  St.  Jean  climb  the  reef  as  the 
moon  ran  out  on  the  end  of  a  flying  scud  of 
cloud  to  glance  on  the  foam-edged  roll  of 
the  black  wild  seas ;  saw  the  others  following 
along  the  sides  of  the  ice-sheathed  rock  to 
carry  succor  to  the  freezing  castaways,  and 
saw,  too,  a  plunging  portion  of  the  wreck 
strike  one  form,  and  hurl  it  headlong.  It  was 
her  husband.  And  although  he  was  brought 
back  alive,  yet  the  blow  upon  his  breast,  and 
the  night's  exposure  in  the  icy  waters,  in  his 
disheartened  state,  did  deathly  work  upon 


OLD    MADAME  53 

St.  Jean,  and  he  was  laid  low  and  helpless 
long  before  his  release. 

Then  Elizabeth  sold  the  hay-fields  along 
the  main-land  to  pay  the  bills  of  the  doctor, 
who  was  also  the  druggist,  to  try  softer  air 
for  the  prostrated  man,  to  bring  him  home 
again.  She  had  loved  to  see  the  sun  ripen- 
ing the  long  stretch  of  their  rich  grasses  with 
reds  and  purples,  with  russets  and  fresh- 
bursting  green  again,  as  far  as  eye  could  see. 
But  she  forgot  she  had  ever  owned  them,  or 
owning  them  had  lost  them.  They  were 
there  still  when  she  gazed  that  way.  Then 
the  Thierry  place  followed,  and  the  little 
Hasard  houses, —  they  had  not  yet  learned 
how  to  be  poor. 

"  There  is  the  quarry,"  said  St.  Jean,  his 
heart  sore  as  his  hand  was  feeble.  "  We  can- 
not work  it  now." 

"  The  grocer  took  it  long  ago,"  said  Eliz- 
abeth. 

"  And  the  Podarzhon  orchard  ?  " 

"  Oh,  the  Podarzhon  orchard  !  Yes,  your 
great-grandsire  used  to  call  it  his  pot  of 
money.  Well,  the  trees  were  old  and  ran 


54  OLD   MADAME 

to  wood, —  your  father  renewed  so  many  ! 
But  the  apples  had  lost  their  flavor, —  what 
apples  they  used  to  be !  Oh,  yes,  we  ate 
up  the  Podarzhon  orchard  some  time  since. 
And  the  lamb-pasture  brought  the  children 
their  great-coats  and  shoes  last  year.  And 
the  barley-field —  How  lucky  that  we  hap- 
pened to  have  them,  my  dear  !  " 

"And  I  dying,"  groaned  St.  Jean.  "  What, 
what  is  to  become  of  them  !  " 

"To  become  of  them  !  "  said  the  unfalter- 
ing spirit.  "Is  there  question  what  will  be- 
come of  any  of  the  blood  of  Chaslesmarie  ?  " 

A  night  came,  at  length,  when  Hope 
fainted  in  her  arms  —  Elizabeth's  last  child 
was  dead.  "A  white  name  and  a  white 
soul,"  said  Elizabeth.  "  I  thank  God  1 
knew  him  !  "  And  the  Geoffrey  field  went 
to  bury  him.  "  I  shall  be  with  him  soon," 
she  said,  smiling,  not  weeping.  "  Heaven 
can  hardly  be  more  holy  than  he  made  earth 
seem,  he  was  so  like  a  saint !  "  After  that, 
she  felt  as  if  he  had  no  more  than  gone  on 
one  of  his  long  voyages.  She  sold  the  few 
acres  of  the  Millet  farm  in  a  month  or  two ; 


OLD   MADAME  55 

they  had  nothing  else  to  live  on  now  but 
such  small  sales ;  and  from  a  portion  of  the 
proceeds  she  put  aside,  in  a  little  hair-covered 
coffer,  her  grave-clothes,  with  the  money,  in 
crisp  bank-notes,  that  should  one  day  suffice 
to  lay  her  away  decently  between  her  graves. 
And  then  she  and  Hope  sat  down  and  spent 
their  days  telling  over  the  virtues  of  their 
dead. 

It  was  a  summer  day,  when  the  late  wild- 
roses  were  just  drooping  on  their  stems  and 
the  wanton  blackberry  vines  were  every- 
where putting  out  their  arms,  and  all  things 
hung  a  little  heavily  in  the  still  air  before 
the  thunder-storm,  that  Elizabeth  climbed 
alone,  with  her  staff,  to  the  dimple  among 
the  rocks  where  her  dear  ones  lay.  She 
paused  at  the  top  to  look  around  her.  Here 
swept  the  encircling  river,  with  the  red  rocks 
rising  from  its  azure ;  beyond  it  the  main- 
land lifted  softly  swelling  fields  that  had 
once  belonged  to  her  ancestors  of  glorious 
memory ;  far  away  to  the  south  and  east, 
over  its  ledges  and  reefs  mounting  purple 
to  the  bending  sky,  stretched  the  sea,  its 


56  OLD   MADAME 

foaming  fields  also  once  theirs  and  yielding 
them  its  revenues.  Now, —  nothing  but  these 
graves,  she  said ;  the  graves  of  renown,  of 
honor,  of  lofty  purity.  "  No,  no,"  said 
Elizabeth  aloud.  "  Renown,  honor,  purity 
are  not  buried  here.  St.  Jean's  children 
cannot  be  robbed  of  that  inheritance.  Fire 
that  still  burns  must  burst  through  the  ashes. 
It  is  fallen  indeed;  but  with  these  children  it 
shall  begin  its  upward  way  again  !  " 

"  It's  upward  way  again,"  said  a  deep 
voice.  And,  half-starting,  she  turned  to  see 
old  Ben  Benvoisie  sitting  on  one  of  the 
graves  below  her. 

"  So  you  are  satisfied  at  last,  Ben  Benvoi- 
sie," said  Elizabeth,  after  a  moment's  gazing. 

"  Satisfied  with  what  ?  " 

"  Satisfied  that  not  one  child  is  left  to  my 
arms,  and  that,  when  the  mortgage  on  the 
Mansion  falls  due,  not  one  acre  of  my  birth- 
right is  left  to  my  name." 

"  Do  you  think  I  did  it,  then,  Old  Ma- 
dame ? "  asked  the  man,  pulling  his  cloak 
about  him.  "Am  I  one  of  the  forces  of 
nature  ?  You  flatter  me  !  Am  I  the  pride, 


OLD   MADAME  57 

the  waste,  the  love  of  pleasure,  the  heedless- 
ness  of  the  morrow,  the  self-confidence  of 
your  race,  that  forgot  there  was  a  world  out- 
side the  sound  of  the  name  of  Chaslesmarie  ? 
Did  I  take  one  life  away  from  you  ? "  he 
cried,  as  he  tottered  to  his  stick.  "  Nay, 
once  I  would  have  given  you  my  own !  Did 
I  take  a  penny  of  your  wealth  ?  I  am  as 
poor  to-day  as  I  was  seventy  years  ago  when 
I  laid  my  life  at  your  feet,  and  you  laughed 
and  scorned  and  spurned  it,  and  thought  so 
lightly  of  it  you  forgot  it !  " 

Elizabeth  was  silent  a  little.  Her  hood 
fell  back,  and  there  streamed  out  a  long  lock 
of  her  silver  hair  in  which  still  burned  a 
gleam  of  gold.  Her  black  eyes,  softer  than 
once  they  were,  met  quietly  the  gaze  that 
was  reading  the  writing  of  the  lines  cut  in 
her  face,  like  the  lines  whipped  into  stone 
by  the  sharp  sands  of  the  desert. 

"  It  was  not  these  levelling  days,"  she 
said.  "  I  was  the  child  of  nobles  — " 

"And  I  was  a  worm  at  your  feet.  A 
worm  with  a  sting,  you  found.  But  it  was 
not  you  I  cursed,"  he  cried  in  a  hoarse  pas- 


58  OLD   MADAME 

sion, —  "  not  you,  Elizabeth  Champernoune  ! 
It  was  the  master  — " 

"  Louis  and  I  were  one,"  she  answered 
him.  "  We  are  one  still.  A  part  of  him  is 
here  above  the  sod ;  a  part  of  me  is  there 
below  it.  We  shall  rest  beside  each  other 
soon,  as  we  did  every  night  of  forty  years. 
Soon  you,  too,  Ben  Benvoisie,  will  go  to 
your  long  sleep,  and  neither  your  banning 
nor  your  blessing  will  help  or  hurt  the  gene- 
ration that  is  to  come." 

"  Will  it  not  ?  "  he  said.  And  he  laughed 
a  low  laugh  half  under  his  breath.  "Yet 
the  generations  repeat  themselves.  Look 
there !  "  And  he  wheeled  about  suddenly 
and  pointed  with  his  stick,  as  if  it  had  been 
an  old  wizard's  wand.  "  Look  yonder  at 
the  beach,"  he  said.  "  On  the  flat  bowlder 
by  which  we  found  the  bed  of  garnets  when 
you  and  I  were  too  young  —  eighty  years 
ago,  is  it  ?  —  to  know  that  you  were  the 
child  of  nobles,  and  I  a  worm !  " 

And  there,  on  the  low,  flat  rock,  distinct 
against  the  turbid  darkness  of  the  sky,  sat 
the  pretty  Barbara,  a  brown-eyed  lass  of  six- 


OLD   MADAME  59 

teen,  and  the  arm  about  her  shoulder  was 
the  arm  of  young  Ben  Benvoisie,  the  old 
man's  grandson,  and  his  face,  a  handsome 
tawny  face  with  the  blue  fire  of  its  eyes,  was 
bent  toward  hers  —  and  hers  was  lifted. 

"  Leave  them  to  their  dream  a  little  while, 
Old  Madame,  before  you  wake  them,"  said 
the  old  man,  in  a  strangely  altered  voice. 

"  I  shall  not  wake  them,"  said  Elizabeth. 

And  they  were  silent  a  moment  again, 
looking  down  at  the  figures  on  the  rocks. 
And  the  two  faces  that  had  bent  together 
there,  had  clung  together  in  their  first  long 
sweet  kiss  of  love,  parted,  with  the  redness 
of  innocent  blushes  on  them,  and  were 
raised  toward  the  distant  sea,  now  dimly 
streaked  with  foam  and  wind. 

"  I  have  seen  ninety  years,"  said  old  Ben 
Benvoisie.  "  And  you,  Old  Madame  ?  " 

"  I  have  lived  eighty-five,"  she  answered, 
absently. 

"  Long  years,  long  years, "  he  said. 
"  But,  at  last,"  he  said,  "  at  last,  Dame 
Elizabeth,  my  flesh  and  blood  and  yours  are 
one ! " 


60  OLD   MADAME 

Elizabeth  turned  to  move  away,  but  his 
voice  again  arrested  her.  "  Look  ye !  "  he 
said.  "  When  those  two  are  one,  once  and 
forever,  when  Chaslesmarie  is  sunk  in  Ben- 
voisie,  when  you  are  conquered  at  last,  L 
shall  tell  them  where  Master  Louis  buried 
his  moneys,  Old  Madame  !  " 

She  had  been  going  on  without  a  word ; 
but  she  stopped  and  looked  back  over  her 
shoulder.  "  Only  they  are  conquered,  Ben 
Benvoisie,  who  contend,"  she  said.  "And 
I  have  never  contended.  Perhaps  I  had 
rather  see  her  dead.  I  do  not  know.  But 
Barbara  has  her  own  life  to  live  in  these 
changed  times.  She  is  too  young,  I  am  too 
old,  to  make  her  live  mine.  And  were  I 
conquered,"  she  cried  in  a  great  voice,  "  it  is 
not  by  you,  but  by  age  and  the  slow  years 
and  death !  I  defy  you,  as  I  have  defied 
Fate  !  For,  take  the  bread  from  my  mouth, 
the  mantle  from  my  back,  yet  while  I  live 
the  current  in  my  veins  remains,"  cried  the 
old  Titaness,  "  and  while  I  live  that  current 
will  always  run  with  the  courage  and  the 
honor  of  the  Chaslesmaries  and  Champer- 
nounes ! " 


OLD   MADAME  61 

"  Not  so,"  said  the  other.  "  Conquered 
you  are.  Conquered  because  your  race 
ceases.  Because  Chaslesmarie  is  swallowed 
up  in  Benvoisie  as  death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory ! " 

But  she  had  gone  on  into  the  gathering 
darkness  of  the  storm,  from  which  the 
young  people  fled  up  the  shore,  and  heard 
no  more.  And  the  storm  burst  about  the 
island,  and  the  old  Chaslesmarie  Mansion 
answered  it  in  roof  and  rafter,  trembling  as 
if  to  the  buffets  of  striving  elemental  foes. 
And  all  at  once  the  flames  wrapped  it ;  and 
gilded  wainscot,  Dutch  carving,  ancestral 
portraits,  were  only  a  pile  of  hissing  cinders 
when  the  morning  sun  glittered  on  rain- 
drops, rocks,  and  river.  And  Elizabeth, 
with  her  little  hair-coffer  of  cere-clothes  and 
money,  had  gone  to  Hope's  cottage,  and 
old  Ben  Benvoisie  was  found  stretched  upon 
the  grave  where  she  had  seen  him  sitting. 
And  they  never  knew  where  Cousin  Louis 
had  buried  his  money. 

"  Miss  Barbara  !  Barbara,  honey  !  "  called 
old  Phillis,  again,  a  little  before  noon. 


62  OLD   MADAME 

"  Where's  this  you's  hiding  at  ?  Old  Ma- 
dame wants  ye.  Don't  ye  hear  me  tell  ?  " 

And  pretty  Barbara  came  hesitatingly  up 
the  rocks  that  made  each  dwelling  in  the 
place  look  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  the  island 
itself,  tearful  and  rosy  and  sparkling,  And 
by  her  side,  grave  as  became  him  that  day, 
and  erect  and  proud  as  his  grand-parent, 
was  old  Ben  Benvoisie's  grandson. 

"  Barbara,"  said  the  Old  Madame  pres- 
ently, breaking  through  the  reverie  caused 
by  their  first  few  words,  "  did  my  eyes  de- 
ceive me  yesterday?  Have  you  cut  adrift? 
Have  you  made  up  your  mind  that  you  can 
do  without  fine  dresses  and  silver  dishes 
and — " 

"Why,  I  always  have,"  said  Barbara, 
looking  up  simply. 

"That  is  true,"  said  Elizabeth.  "And 
so  they  do  not  count  for  much.  And  you 
think  you  know  what  love  is  —  you  baby  ? 
You  really  think  you  love  this  sailor-lad? 
Tell  me,  how  much  do  you  love  him, 
child?" 

"  As  much,  Madame  dear,"  said  Barbara, 


OLD   MADAME  63 

shyly,  dimpling,  glancing  half  askance,  "  per- 
haps as  much,  grandmamma,  as  you  loved 
Cousin  Louis." 

"  Say  you  so  ?  Then  it  were  enough  to 
carry  its  light  through  life  and  throw  it  far 
across  the  dark  shadows  of  death,  my  child ! 
And  you,"  she  said,  turning  suddenly  and 
severely  to  young  Ben.  "Is  it  for  life,  or 
for  a  holiday,  a  pleasuring,  a  pastime  ? " 

He  looked  at  her  as  if,  in  spite  of  the 
claims  of  parentage  and  her  all  but  century 
of  reign,  he  examined  her  right  to  ask. 
"Since  Barbara  promised  me,"  said  he  at 
last,  "  I  have  felt,  Old  Madame,  like  one 
inside  a  church." 

"  Something  in  him,"  said  Elizabeth. 
"  Not  altogether  the  sweetness  of  the  senses, 
but  rather  the  sacredness  of  the  sacrament." 

And  although  they  were  not  married  for 
twice  a  twelvemonth,  Elizabeth  considered 
that  she  had  married  them  that  morning. 
And  the  reddest  bonnet-rouge  among  the 
fishermen  had  a  thrill  as  if  all  thrones  were 
levelled  when,  at  old  Ben  Benvoisie's  fun- 
eral,—  in  the  simple  procession  where  none 


64  OLD   MADAME 

rode, —  after  young  Ben  and  '  Barbara,  they 
saw  Hope  and  Old  Madame  walk,  as  became 
the  next  of  kin. 

And  so  one  year  and  another  crept  into 
the  past.  And  at  length  Old  Madame  fell 
ill. 

"  I  am  going  now,  Hope,"  she  said.  "  I 
should  like  to  see  Barbara's  baby  before  I 
go.  But  remember  that  there  is  money  for 
my  burial  in  the  little  coffer.  And  there  is 
still  the  Dernier's  wood-land  to  sell  — " 

"  Do  not  think  of  such  things  now,"  said 
Hope.  "  God  will  take  care  of  us  in  some 
way.  He  always  has.  We  are  as  much  a 
part  of  the  universe  as  the  rest  of  it." 

"We  are  put  in  this  world  to  think  of 
such  things,"  said  Elizabeth.  "  We  are  put 
in  this  world  to  live  in  it,  not  to  live  in  an- 
other. Now  I  am  going  to  another.  We 
shall  see  what  that  will  be.  From  this  I 
have  had  all  it  had  to  give.  I  came  into  it 
with  the  reverence  and  revenue  of  princes. 
I  go  out  of  it  a  beggar,"  she  cried,  in  a  tone 
that  tore  Hope's  heart.  "  I  came  into  it  in 
purple  —  I  go  out  of  it  in  rags  — " 


OLD    MADAME  65 

Rags.  Before  they  laid  her  away  with 
those  who  had  made  part  of  her  career  of 
splendor  and  of  sorrow,  they  opened  the 
little  hair-coffer, —  moths  had  eaten  the 
grave-clothes  and  a  mouse  had  made  its  nest 
in  the  bank-notes.  And  to-day  nothing  is 
left  of  Chaslesmarie  or  Champernoune  — 
not  even  a  name  and  hardly  a  memory.  And 
the  blood  ennobled  by  the  King  of  France 
is  the  common  blood  of  the  fishers  of  the 
island  given  once  with  all  its  serfs  and  vas- 
sals—  the  island-fishers  who  sell  you  a 
string  of  herring  for  a  shilling. 


Ordronnaux 


Ordronnaux 


ARDLY  had  Ordronnaux  married 
Emilia  when  circumstances  developed 
in  him  an  extraordinary  —  jealousy  one 
might  call  it,  had  he  had  any  one  concerning 
whom  to  be  jealous  ;  but  as  it  was,  the 
passion  must  be  as  nameless  as  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost. 

He  had  married  Emilia,  knowing  that 
she  cared  nothing  for  him,  but  knowing 
also  that  she  cared  for  no  one  else,  and 
presuming  that  his  devotion  could  warm  the 
stone  to  life.  In  fact  he  had  not  been  sure 
that  he  would  not  rather  have  it  so  than 
otherwise  ;  and  perhaps  he  had  pictured  in 
his  dreams  the  slow  dawn  of  the  rosiness 
of  love  across  the  cold  marble  of  his  statu- 
esque wife.  He  had  never  pictured  in  any 
dream  the  unbearable  suffering  it  might  be 
69 


yo  ORDRONNAUX 

if  that  cold  marble  remained  always  icy  to 
his  touch,  irresponsive  to  his  smile. 

In  the  first  moment  that  he  had  seen 
Emilia,  still  young  himself  and  she  far 
younger,  he  had  adored  her.  He  was 
calling  at  the  country-house  of  a  friend, 
when  the  beautiful  thing  coming  in  at  the 
glass  door,  tall  and  slender  and  with  her 
arms  full  of  flowers,  paused  waiting  for  her 
companions  who  had  lingered  on  the  lawn 
outside.  A  face  like  the  face  of  a  dream  it 
was  that  Ordronnaux  saw,  he  hardly  be- 
lieved he  saw  it  till  he  looked  again, —  so 
soft  and  bright,  with  the  pale  carmine  of  the 
cheek,  the  snow  of  the  forehead,  the  deep 
violet  of  the  black-lashed  eye,  the  violet 
shadows  around  it;  and  he  noted  all  the 
beauty  in  a  glance,  from  the  pearly  oval  of 
the  chin  to  the  glitter  of  the  chestnut  hair 
waving  in  ripples  of  gold  and  brown  about  a 
perfect  head,  whose  stag-like  carriage  gave 
such  alluring  intimation  of  that  shy  reserve 
which  one  longs  to  penetrate,  as  one  does 
some  hollow  of  the  woods,  whose  wealth 
sunbeam  and  sudden  shadow  half  reveals 


ORDRONNAUX  71 

and  veils.  As  she  turned  and  saw  him,  a 
little  startled,  she  dropped  a  part  of  the 
roses  and  honeysuckles  that  she  held,  and 
bent  to  gather  them  again.  He  sprang  to 
help  her ;  he  touched  her  warm,  white  hand, 
a  lock  of  her  hair  brushed  his  face,  he 
looked  in  her  great  sweet  innocent  eyes, 
and  when  he  rose  he  had  resolved  to  marry 
her !  Then  her  companions  came  in,  and 
there  were  greetings  and  presentations  and 
gayety  and  confusion ;  and  presently  Louise 
was  singing  at  the  piano,  and  Alice  and 
Captain  Harriman  were  waltzing  down  the 
room  to  her  song;  the  others  were  flirting 
over  the  photographs ;  and  through  all  the 
commotion  Emilia  sat  calmly  in  the  em- 
brasure of  the  window,  weaving  her  flowers, 
without  speaking  —  it  seemed  to  him  as 
serene  and  inaccessible  as  a  star. 

He  placed  himself  beside  her,  and  passed 
the  spray  towards  which  she  stretched  her 
hand.  But  though  she  responded  gently 
to  his  sentences,  she  said  almost  nothing 
herself;  —  he  imagined  then  that  her  silence 
was  more  eloquent  than  words ;  when  she 


72  ORDRONNAUX 

lifted  those  violet  eyes,  he  felt  the  same 
emotion  as  when  reading  an  exquisite 
poem ;  when  the  white  lids  fell  it  was  like 
the  ceasing  of  music.  In  three  months  he 
married  Emilia. 

When  he  first  proposed,  although  most 
men  would  have  called  it  decided  rejection, 
Ordronnaux  considered  that  his  proposal 
was  neither  refused  nor  accepted.  "  Please 
say  no  more,"  she  murmured.  "  I  could 
not  love  you."  She  was  not  a  month 
from  school,  and  her  notion  of  a  lover, 
nourished  on  the  romances  read  aloud  in 
the  dormitory  by  stealth,  was  of  some  one 
very  different  from  Ordronnaux,  of  whom 
she  had  heard  Harriman  say  that  when 
going  about  his  mountain-farm  he  wore 
his  trousers  tucked  into  great  top-boots, 
and  was  followed  by  a  pack  of  hounds, 
and  the  picture  had  impressed  her  un- 
pleasantly ;  the  lovers  in  her  romances  were 
always  in  full  dress.  But  Ordronnaux 
followed  her  home;  he  took  the  hearts  of 
father  and  mother  by  storm, —  such  hearts 
as  they  had ;  he  told  them  what  Emilia 


ORDRONNAUX  73 

had  said  to  him,  and  they  added  their  per- 
suasions to  his. 

It  was  a  home  whose  poverty,  if  it  did 
not  just  escape  squalor,  was  yet  very  ham- 
pering, especially  to  high-born  tradition; 
she  had  just  left  that  other  home,  the  home 
of  her  late  schoolmates,  Alice  and  Louise, 
where  luxury  and  beauty  were  the  handmaids, 
and  she  felt  the  wants  and  restrictions  here 
as  though  the  place  were  noisome  —  the  little 
rooms,  the  shabby  furnishing,  the  scanty 
table,  the  weary  and  irritable  nerves  of  her 
mother,  the  fierce  humors  of  her  unfortunate 
father.  She  did  not  know  any  way  to  avoid 
them  all ;  she  had  been  educated  not  for 
work,  but  for  display  —  for  the  treasure  of 
her  beauty  had  been  early  discovered,  and  it 
had  been  intended  that  she  should  make  a 
brilliant  marriage.  Now  that  the  chance  had 
come,  and  she  had  declined  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it  and  of  the  means  of  restoring  her 
family  to  its  old  place,  peace  was  allowed  her 
neither  by  day  nor  night.  Well  —  Ordron- 
naux'  home  was  like  the  one,  leaving  which 
had  so  lately  made  her  feel  as  if  the  gates  of 


74  ORDRONNAUX 

Paradise  had  closed :  if  she  married  him,  he 
would  take  her  there,  he  would  provide  for 
those  she  left  behind.  It  was  the  selling  of 
a  slave ;  but  yet  she  might  learn  to  love  him, 
—  there  was  no  reason  why  not, —  only  that 
he  had  loved  her  too  suddenly  and  too  much, 
and  had  suffered  her  to  feel  it,  and  had  so  re- 
pelled her,  as  a  flower  might  shrink  from  the 
too  ardent  sun.  There  are  women  who  need 
to  be  compelled,  and  who  feel  only  contempt 
for  the  suppliant. 

One  night  as  Ordronnaux  sat  listening  to 
the  mother, —  an  appalling  woman, —  Emilia 
revolved  all  these  things :  she  was  so  still 
that  he  thought  it  could  be  only  because  he 
was  detestable  to  her.  She  left  the  room  on 
some  errand,  and  as  she  returned  he  came 
out  and  met  her  in  the  little  hall ;  he  bade 
her  good  night,  and  he  took  the  hand  she 
proffered  —  and  in  a  sudden  despair  he  raised 
it  to  his  lips.  "  Do  not  be  offended,"  he 
said  but  half  audibly,  throwing  back  his  head 
with  a  haughty  defiance  of  his  hopelessness. 
"  It  is  the  last,  as  well  as  the  first  time.  I 
am  going  away.  For  since  it  never  can  be 
mine  — " 


ORDRONNAUX  75 

"  Will  you  have  it  without  the  love  ?  "  she 
asked,  not  looking  up,  red  with  shame. 

In  an  instant,  he  had  bent  his  head  again 
above  the  hand  and  had  covered  it  with 
kisses  and  with  tears.  She  opened  her  great 
eyes  in  astonishment ;  she  knew  nothing  of 
the  wild  moods  and  crises  of  passion. 

"  I  do  not  understand,"  she  said,  "  how 
you  can  be  willing  to  marry  a  woman  who 
does  not  love  you." 

"  If  I  do  not  make  you  love  me,  once  my 
wife  !  "  he  cried — "  then  may  God  forget  me 
in  my  day  of  trouble  !  "  he  added,  between 
his  teeth. 

She  trembled  with  a  superstitious  fear  of 
him  and  of  his  love. 

"Are  you  sure  you  will  not  regret  it  ?  "  she 
asked,  falteringly. 

"  Never  !     Never  !  " 

"  Nor  make  me  ?  " 

"  I  will  make  you  happy  ! "  he  said  as  fer- 
vently as  though  he  took  an  oath. 

She  did  not  know  how  to  play  with  a  man's 
sufferings ;  having  given  him  hope,  he  might 
have  his  way  —  and  she  married  him  the 
next  week. 


76  ORDRONNAUX 

What  a  hateful  wedding-journey  it  was ! 
They  spent  a  day  in  New  York,  where  a 
mistress  of  the  modes,  as  she  called  herselfj 
waited  on  Emilia  in  her  rooms  with  fabrics 
and  styles,  measured  her,  noted  her  complex- 
ion and  the  color  of  her  hair,  in  what  Emilia 
felt  as  prolonged  insolence ;  and  then  they 
were  travelling  where,  as  it  chanced,  Emilia's 
simple  wardrobe  answered  all  purposes,  and 
on  their  return  to  the  city  a  trousseau  awaited 
her  to  whose  preparation  the  dressmaker  had 
bent  all  her  resources,  and  to  accept  which 
Emilia  found  harder  than  she  had  found  it 
to  accept  Ordronnaux. 

As  Emilia,  preparing  for  the  first  ball  given 
in  her  honor  by  Ordronnaux'  friends,  put 
on  the  royal  silk,  the  web-like  lace,  bound 
the  golden  bands  about  her  wrists,  it  all 
seemed  to  her  a  livery  of  service.  As  she 
lifted  her  hands  the  clink  of  her  heavy  brace- 
lets was  like  the  clank  of  chains  ;  and  her  face 
burned  with  the  disgrace.  But  she  did  not 
tear  the  livery  off,  as  in  the  first  moment  she 
had  felt  inclined.  It  was  due  to  Ordronnaux 
that  his  wife  should  appear  as  he  wished. 


ORDRONNAUX  77 

"  If  I  am  his  wife,"  she  said,  "  I  have  a  right 
to  this  sumptuousness."  But  the  color  did 
not  leave  her  cheek,  for  she  knew  that  in 
her  inmost  soul  she  was  no  wife  at  all  — 
only  a  creature  that  had  been  bought  and 
sold.  And  she  slowly  began  to  hate  the 
buyer. 

But  what  a  picture  she  was,  as  Ordron- 
naux  came  into  the  room  for  her — the 
white  velvet  of  the  toilette,  with  its  satin 
facings  pale-tinted  as  if  a  sunbeam  had 
sifted  through  a  rose  upon  them ;  the 
creamy  Alen9on  lace,  the  dimpled  arm, 
the  waxen  shoulder,  the  half  defiant,  half 
submissive  air,  the  perfect  head  and  face 
and  bloom  !  He  came  smilingly  towards 
her,  and  opening  a  box  he  held,  he  took 
from  it  and  bound  in  her  hair  a  bandeau 
of  great  solitaire  stones,  about  her  throat 
another,  and  flower  by  flower  of  diamond 
sparks  he  fastened  together  for  her  to 
secure  upon  her  bodice  till  the  stomacher 
was  all  ablaze.  She  shivered  when  it  was 
done,  and  drew  the  lace  across  them,  half 
shrouding  their  radiance  —  and  then  she 


78  ORDRONNAUX 

saw  herself  in  the  mirror.  Perhaps  she 
would  not  have  been  a  woman  if  there  had 
not  come  a  pulse  of  pleasure  at  the  sight ; 
but,  directly,  the  lovely  vision  in  the  glass 
was  blurred  by  the  big  tear  that  followed 
—  it  might  have  been  so  different  if  she  had 
loved  the  giver.  Ordronnaux  did  not  see 
the  tear;  stooping  he  laid  a  kiss  on  the 
white  shoulder,  and  then  all  at  once  he 
folded  his  arms  about  her  and  she  felt  his 
great  heart  beat.  Quickly  and  angrily  she 
freed  herself.  "Don't!  Don't!  "  she  cried 
before  she  thought.  "  Don't  try  to  buy  my 
love  with  gifts  or  you  may  buy  my  hate !  " 

A  winter  wind  with  all  its  frost  could 
not  have  blown  a  bitterer  breath  across 
a  blossoming  field  than  these  words,  this 
action,  flung  across  Ordronnaux'  new  hopes. 
He  drew  back,  chilled  to  his  heart  of  hearts. 
It  would  have  been  impossible  for  him  to 
sneer —  but  just  then  there  came  a  rap  upon 
the  door.  "  Mrs.  Ordronnaux'  carriage  is 
waiting  for  her,"  said  the  servant  with 
profound  obeisance  ;  and  whether  Ordron- 
naux felt  it  or  not,  Emilia  felt  a  sneer  in  the 


ORDRONNAUX  79 

mere  circumstance.  Nor  could  she  quite 
discriminate  —  it  seemed  to  her  that,  after 
all,  the  sneer  came  from  Ordronnaux,  though 
he  had  only  laid  her  cashmere  on  her 
shoulders  and  handed  her  without  a  word 
to  her  carriage.  Yet  when  the  night  was 
over,  and  she  returned  triumphant  to  the 
hotel  from  the  ovation  which  Ordronnaux' 
friends  had  rendered  to  his  wife,  she  half 
repented  herself.  She  was  sensible  that  the 
homage  was  rendered  to  her  own  obvious 
beauty  and  fancied  sweetness  too,  yet  she 
knew  well  how  much  was  owing  to  the 
position  in  which  Ordronnaux  had  placed 
her;  she  knew  from  her  brief  month's  ex- 
perience in  Alice's  home  that  neither  her 
beauty  nor  her  sweetness  would  command 
this  homage  without  the  splendor  also.  "  It 
was  the  conduct  of  a  silly  girl,"  she  said  to 
herself,  dwelling  still  upon  the  moment 
before  they  went  out.  "  I  will  do  better," 
she  said,  "  next  time."  But  next  time  did 
not  come. 

Ordronnaux'  nature  was  a   strangely  in- 
flammable one,  and  a  hurt  healed  but  slowly 


8o  ORDRONNAUX 

under  its  feverish  stress.  Proud  and  pained, 
he  could  not  submit  to  such  a  rebuff  again  ; 
and,  while  still  smarting,  he  resolved  to  woo 
Emilia  no  more  in  the  old  way.  Perhaps 
he  was  angry  with  her,  the  least  in  the 
world :  for  all  that,  his  passion  was  none  the 
less  —  only  every  throb  of  the  unanswered 
love  was  all  the  greater  pang  for  the  anger 
that  made  it  so  sore.  Some  natural  self-re- 
spect told  him  that  she  did  not  know  him ; 
he  saw  that  he  had  been  too  precipitate ;  he 
hoped  that  many  days  of  closer  life  alone 
with  him  might  reveal  to  her  a  side  that  was 
worthy  of  her  affection ;  he  determined  to 
take  her  away, —  as  soon  as  the  period  which 
had  been  given  out  as  that  of  their  intended 
stay  had  elapsed, —  to  his  home,  where  in 
much  seclusion  she  could  learn  to  lean  on 
him,  and  where  he  would  surround  her  with 
silent  tenderness,  but  never  annoy  her  again 
with  expression  of  it  till  the  time  seemed 
ripe. 

Poor  Ordronnaux !  He  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  this  self-abasement.  So  far  his 
life  had  been  a  success ;  he  had  wished  for 


ORDRONNAUX  81 

little  that  did  not  come  with  the  wish ;  fort- 
une had  smiled  upon  him,  and  so  had 
women  —  and  now  the  only  woman  whose 
smile  could  make  his  sunshine  was  colder 
than  snow.  He  had  been  in  many  respects 
a  fine  fellow, —  generous,  brave,  kind  and 
gentle  ;  he  had  hardly  any  conceit, —  think- 
ing that  much  was  due  to  circumstance  and 
little  to  himself,  that  prodigality  was  no 
virtue  when  one  cared  nothing  for  what  was 
squandered,  that  courage  was  an  easy  thing 
where  there  was  no  constitutional  timidity, 
that  misfortune  had  never  tried  his  temper. 
He  did  not  pride  himself  upon  his  integrity; 
anything  other  than  integrity  he  would  have 
believed  impossible  to  an  Ordronnaux.  He 
was  not  a  handsome  man ;  though  one  who 
loved  him  would  have  found  a  rough 
grandeur  in  the  straight,  strong  lines  of  his 
dark  face,  and  his  smile  was  an  illumination. 
Doubtless  if  Emilia,  ignorant  as  she  was  of 
all  experience  of  love,  had  been  thrown  into 
his  society,  and  allowed  to  remain  without 
feeling  herself  an  object  of  too  passionate 
pursuit,  without  having  all  her  antagonism 


82  ORDRONNAUX 

aroused  by  undue  pressure,  without  being 
sullied  by  the  suggestion  that  her  beauty 
was  at  barter  for  his  wealth,  without  having 
every  avenue  of  romance  closed  upon  her 
too,  she  would  have  felt  for  him  eventually 
some  degree  of  attachment.  Now,  in  spite 
of  her  resolve  to  do  better, —  perhaps  some- 
what because  he  afforded  her  no  opportunity 
to  carry  out  the  resolve, —  when  she  saw 
Ordronnaux  opposite  her  in  the  carriage, 
silent  and  abstracted,  the  sight  sometimes 
gave  her  a  disdainful  repulsion ;  as  she  took 
his  arm  to  enter  an  assembly, —  rustling  and 
glittering  though  she  were  in  the  lustre  of 
his  gifts, —  it  was  almost  with  a  quiver  of 
abhorrence.  She  was  afraid  of  herself;  she 
prayed  every  night  of  her  life  that  she  might 
be  made  to  love  her  husband  —  and  resented 
his  existence  every  morning. 

But  Ordronnaux  did  not  fail  in  any  ob- 
servance. He  addressed  her  as  Emilia,  and 
remembering,  it  might  be,  that  in  his  mother's 
church  it  was  held  that  by  assuming  the  atti- 
tude of  receiving  the  living  grace,  grace  could 
not  fail  to  come,  he  followed  a  course  of  con- 


ORDRONNAUX  83 

duct  which  by  taking  it  for  granted  that 
everything  was  right  between  them,  might 
some  day,  through  sheer  force  of  habit,  make 
it  so.  That  Emilia  should  not  feel  this  re- 
ducing her  to  the  level  of  a  household  pet, 
and  revolt  against  it,  tacitly  and  decently,  but 
with  all  her  strength,  was  not  to  be  expected. 
Tacit  as  the  revolt  was,  Ordronnaux,  of 
course,  was  aware  of  it ;  yet  why  such  devo- 
tion should  be  repugnant  to  her  who  had 
never  known  a  lover  he  did  not  understand. 
Sometimes  he  was  conscious  of  a  resentment 
on  his  own  part,  a  dull,  smouldering  resent- 
ment in  which  there  was,  nevertheless,  a 
spark  of  fire, —  a  resentment  against  the  cold- 
ness, the  silence,  the  daily  robbery  of  hap- 
piness, the  withholding  of  the  smiles  that 
should  be  his,  the  veiling  of  the  emotions  he 
should  share, —  yet  he  smothered  it,  know- 
ing that  she  had  promised  nothing,  that  it 
was  his  task  to  win  all.  Still,  he  was  pos- 
sessed with  eagerness  to  know  the  nature  that 
she  hid.  Thus  he  kept  her  under  survey  — 
every  word,  glance,  gesture  ;  nothing  escaped 
him.  If  she  looked  lingeringly  at  a  land- 


84  ORDRONNAUX 

scape  he  remembered  it  ineffaceably,  if  she 
stooped  to  smell  a  flower  he  plucked  it,  if 
she  smiled  at  a  thought  he  was  on  fire  to 
know  the  thought;  he  was  envious  of  the 
moments  when  she  was  alone, —  though 
heaven  knows  she  made  the  moments  when 
he  was  with  her  insufferable, —  and,  while  he 
adored  her  as  his  mistress,  he  distrusted  her 
as  his  rival.  "He  watches  me  as  a  wild 
creature  watches  its  prey,"  she  thought.  "  Is 
it  doubt,  or  love  ?  Or  is  it  more  like  a  sort 
of  madness  than  either ! "  But  the  truth 
was  that  he  was  full  of  an  indefinable  jeal- 
ousy of  herself! 

In  pursuance  of  his  system,  and  because 
it  gave  him  a  proud  pleasure, —  pleasure 
whose  other  side  was  pain, —  he  rode  and 
drove  with  her,  was  sufficiently  by  her  side 
at  dinners,  receptions  and  operas,  took  her 
everywhere  she  might  desire  to  go :  people 
who  watched  them  could  have  seen  only  the 
customary  absorption  of  the  newly-married ; 
people  who  listened  to  them  could  have 
heard  only  the  gently  spoken  commonplaces 
of  two  rather  silent  and  high-bred  persons, 


ORDRONNAUX  85 

who  did  not  carry  their  hearts  on  their 
sleeves. 

"  Ordronnaux  is  infatuated,"  Harriman, 
who  had  been  in  the  city,  said  to  Alice  on 
his  return.  "  He  loves  with  what  you  may 
call  fatuity.  It  is  certainly  maladroit." 

"  To  give  a  woman  the  whip-hand  so  ? " 
laughed  Colonel  Greve.  "  You  women  have 
been  slaves  so  long,  you  make  sad  tyrants 
when  you  have  the  chance  !  " 

"  How  disagreeable ! "  said  Alice.  "It 
vexes  me  to  hear  you  talk  so.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  tyranny  and  fatuity  in  love." 

"  Well,  it  is,  at  any  rate,"  said  Harriman, 
"  very  uncomfortable  for  anybody  who  knows 
what  a  brilliant  fellow  Ordronnaux  is, —  you 
never  saw  him,  did  you,  Greve  ?  —  to  meet 
him  now !  He  is  so  occupied  furtively 
watching  Emilia,  listening  to  her,  admiring 
her,  under  his  mask  of  elegant  passivity,  that 
he  appears  —  I  shouldn't  like  to  say,  dolt- 
ish—" 

"  No,  I  should  hope  not !  "  cried  Louise. 

"  But  tame  and  torpid,"  said  Harriman, 
"  to  the  last  degree.  I  hope  he  shines  a 


86  ORDRONNAUX 

little  more  in  private  or  Emilia  will  think 
she  has  married  nothing  but  a  gold-stick  in 
waiting ! " 

They  were  in  a  gallery  of  paintings  one 
morning,  Ordronnaux  and  Emilia,  and  had 
paused  to  look  at  a  picture  —  a  strange  pict- 
ure for  them  to  look  at  together.  "  Two  in 
the  Campagna,"  was  its  name,  and  stray  re- 
membrances of  the  poem  it  illustrated  flashed 
upon  them  both  as  they  gazed  at  the  vast 
champaign  with  its  ruined  tombs,  its  broken 
arches,  its  nebulous  purples,  the  ghost  of  the 
great  city  far  away,  the  two  lovers  on  the 
grass  with  all  the  glory  of  the  sunlit  air 
trembling  about  them  —  about  them  and 
their  passion,  their  perplexity,  their  pain. 

"  What  are  the  verses  ?  "  asked  Ordron- 
naux, bending  over  her.  "  Can  you  recall 
them  now  ?  I  heard  you  reciting  them  once, 
almost  a  year  ago,  I  think.  I  used  to  know 
them  myself: 

'  Let  us  be  unashamed  of  soul, 

As  earth  lies  bare  to  heaven  above, 
How  is  it  under  our  control 
To  love  or  not  to  love  ? '  " 


ORDRONNAUX  87 

He  repeated,  low-voiced, 

"  'I  would  that  you  were  all  to  me, 

You  that  are  just  so  much,  no  more, — 
Nor  yours,  nor  mine,  nor  slave  nor  free ' — 

I  seem  to  have  lost  them,"  he  said. 

Emilia  would  have  bitten  off  her  tongue 
rather  than  not  have  continued  the  recita- 
tion in  unshaken  tones.  Since  he  knew  she 
could  hardly  have  forgotten  the  poem,  not 
to  repeat  it  was  to  imply  that  she  would  not 
feel  it  if  she  could,  to  falter  was  to  imply 
that  she  meant  it. 

"  'I  would  I  could  adopt  your  will, 

See  with  your  eyes,  and  set  my  heart 

Beating  by  yours,  and  drink  my  fill 

At  your  life's  springs,  your  part,  my  part 

In  life  for  good  or  ill.'  " 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  said,  as  she  ceased.  "  I 
remember  it  all  now.  A  powerful  picture, 
a  powerful  poem.  Yes  — 

"  *  Only  I  discern 
Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn! ' ' 


88  ORDRONNAUX 

And  there  was  a  bitter  intensity  in  his  tone 
that  Emilia  could  not  fail  to  understand, 
and  of  which  she  was  still  thinking, —  for  to 
her  the  poem  bore  a  very  different  meaning, 
when  he  sauntered  away  to  speak  with  some 
one  in  another  portion  of  the  gallery,  and 
left  her  sitting  there. 

As  she  gazed  at  the  picture,  without  see- 
ing it  now,  a  person  at  the  other  end  of  the 
sofa  rose,  and  she  glanced  aside :  a  tall,  pale 
man  with  a  rather  heroic  face,  as  seen  in  that 
swift  half  glimpse,  and  a  knightly  bearing 
despite  his  crutch, —  evidently  a  soldier 
wounded  in  the  war, —  made  her  the  very 
slightest  inclination,  a  sort  of  irresistible 
tribute  to  the  glance  of  such  beautiful  eyes, 
and  went  out.  She  looked  after  him  ab- 
sently, and,  when  her  gaze  returned,  she  saw 
that  he  had  left  a  white  rose, —  a  little  white 
Scotch  rose  with  which  he  had  been  trifling, 
—  upon  her  open  catalogue  that  lay  on  the 
sofa  between  them.  She  took  up  the  cata- 
logue, and  the  rose  with  it,  unaware  that 
Ordronnaux,  in  approaching,  had  seen  the 
whole,  and  she  held  it,  quite  sure  it  was  no 


ORDRONNAUX  89 

accident,  half  wondering,  not  wholly  pleased, 
and  yet  somehow  vaguely  touched.  She 
kept  the  rose  when  she  took  Ordronnaux' 
arm,  partly  for  its  sweetness,  partly  because 
she  could  not  churlishly  refuse  so  simple  an 
offering,  partly  for  the  grain  of  sentiment 
dear  to  her  who  felt  herself  starved  for  it ; 
he  observed  it  in  a  glass  upon  her  table  by 
and  by ;  and  he  was  there  in  the  evening 
when  she  moved  in  her  slow  grace,  as  she  saw 
a  full-blown  petal  drop,  and  took  the  rose 
and  shut  it  in  a  book.  "  I  like  to  come  across 
a  dead  rose  in  a  book,"  she  said,  thought- 
lessly to  the  caller  who  was  present,  she  sel- 
dom spoke  to  Ordronnaux  when  she  could 
help  it,  "  I  fancy  some  romance  shut  in  with 
it  there."  The  whole  thing  was  simple 
enough ;  but  Ordronnaux  would  not  have 
stayed  in  the  city  another  night ;  and  it  was 
the  next  day  that  he  took  her  home  by  a 
roundabout  Canadian  journey  that  consumed 
some  weeks.  The  turf  had  long  been  green 
in  the  city  squares,  and  the  sunny  slopes 
purple  with  violets  ;  that  embowered  ances- 
tral mansion  of  his  among  the  hills,  with  all 


9o  ORDRONNAUX 

its  flower-set  lawns  about  it,  would  be  put- 
ting on  its  loveliest  look,  and  Ordronnaux 
wished  Emilia  to  see  it  first  when  not  one 
white  rose,  but  a  myriad,  climbed  around 
the  windows ! 

"  Emilia,"  he  said,  as  they  alighted  at  the 
porch,  while  the  breath  of  the  honeysuckles 
floated  about  them,  and  turned  to  look  down 
the  velvet  swards,  with  their  border  of  freshly 
green  chestnut  wood,  to  the  great  cliff  whose 
wall  rose  between  them  and  the  lower  earth, 
"  this  is  your  home.  I  wish,"  he  said  fer- 
vently, "  I  wish  you  may  be  happy  here ! " 

"  I  thank  you,"  she  said. 

It  could  not  have  been  less  to  the  merest 
stranger.  She  felt  herself  a  liar  in  making  it 
so  much. 

He  led  her  through  the  apartments,  quaint 
and  low-browed  with  the  old  beams  and  pan- 
els of  the  ceilings,  apartments  enriched  by 
the  gleanings  of  the  foreign  travel  of  many 
generations  of  wealth :  the  lovely  drawing- 
rooms,  where  want  of  height  was  compen- 
sated by  space  and  the  immense  crystal 
openings  of  the  windows  that  made  them  all 


ORDRONNAUX  91 

sunshine,  save  where  tne  shadows  of  leaves 
were  dappling  the  white  velvet  carpets 
among  their  rose  and  azure  hints  and  phan- 
toms of  flowers  :  there  were  marble  sirens 
and  sylphids  shining  between  the  pale  silken 
curtains  there,  mellow  landscapes  now  and 
then  upon  the  walls,  now  and  then  a  bronze 
beautiful  as  when  some  ancient  dreamer  first 
saw  its  god  stand  dark  against  the  sunny 
sky,  an  ebony  escritoire,  or  easel,  with  its 
mosaic,  throwing  up  the  splendor  here,  an 
oriental  trevet,  a  wonder  of  gilding  and  lacq- 
uer starting  from  the  shadows  there,  silken 
divan  and  fauteuil  and  hassock  of  the  same 
pale  perfect  tints  as  curtains  and  carpets, 
soft  in  shade  as  the  fading  clouds  are,  almost 
as  pillowy  —  rooms  too  brilliant  and  beauti- 
ful for  Emilia's  moods.  Nor  did  she  like 
much  better  the  dark  library,  with  its  cases 
carved  from  black  and  ancient  teak,  solid 
and  heavy  as  the  primeval  rock,  the  desk 
upheld  by  a  bent  deity  of  Farther  India 
with  all  his  dragon-like  folds  and  involu- 
tions, the  table  a  huge  black  lotus  itself; 
the  whole  place  full  of  demoniacal  sugges- 


92  ORDRONNAUX 

tions  of  learning.  There  were  other  rooms 
no  more  to  her  fancy,  for  the  translucent 
china  and  the  ringing  salvers  had  a  covert 
insult  to  her  excited  sensitiveness ;  and  the 
first  exclamation  of  pleasure  that  she  ut- 
tered was  over  a  little  parlor  at  the  head  of 
a  flight  of  stairs.  Everything  seemed  to  be 
quite  a  hundred  years  old  there;  the  once 
vermilion  velvets  of  the  hangings  and  the 
unique  upholstery  had  faded  now  to  a  silver 
grey,  with  a  mere  dream  of  the  rose  left 
upon  them,  a  sort  of  frosty  hoariness  over 
all.  Through  the  single  window,  a  long  bal- 
conied window,  the  sunlit  steeps  of  a  distant 
mountain  hung  its  valleys  in  mid-air,  a  mag- 
nificent picture  full  of  magical  moods  and 
changes.  There  was  but  one  other  —  a 
portrait,  hanging  opposite  the  window,  of  a 
dark  and  pale  lady. 

"  Do  you  like  the  room  ? "  asked  Ordron- 
naux. 

"  It  is  very  lovely,"  said  Emilia. 

"  Make  it  your  sitting-room,"  he  replied 
then,  "  where  you  are  never  to  be  disturbed. 
It  opens  from  your  dressing-room,  you  see; 


ORDRONNAUX  93 

my  own  rooms  are  on  the  other  side."  And 
then  he  led  her  to  the  portrait.  "  It  is  my 
mother,"  he  said,  as  they  stood  before  it. 
And,  in  spite  of  all  contradictory  feeling, 
there  was  something  exquisitely  pathetic  to 
Emilia  in  the  moment ;  she  pitied  Ordron- 
naux  and  his  dead  mother  as  she  did  herself, 
and  the  tears  dazzled  her  an  instant. 

It  was  one  of  those  well-painted  portraits 
whose  eyes  follow  you.  Emilia  had  not  no- 
ticed it  before.  As  she  looked  at  it  now  she 
could  not  hinder  a  sense  of  guilt, —  those 
eyes  were  capable  of  reading  her  soul ;  and 
it  was  not  so  she  should  have  met  her  hus- 
band's mother.  It  seemed  all  at  once  im- 
possible to  live  with  those  eyes  pursuing  her. 
Calm,  clear  eyes  —  presently  they  would  be 
avenging  eyes. 

"If  she  were  but  alive!"  Ordronnaux 
said.  "  She  would  have  loved  you  well." 

Emilia  was  only  thankful  she  was  dead. 

And  so  it  happened  that  in  all  the  old- 
fashioned  house,  there  was  not  a  single  room 
whose  atmosphere  Emilia  could  assimilate 
with  that  of  her  own  interior  life,  and  the 


94  ORDRONNAUX 

whole  place  was  only  a  beautiful  prison,  a 
prison  that  she  loathed  the  first  day  she 
crossed  its  threshold  —  loathed  it  because 
it  was  her  place  of  bondage,  loathed  it  be- 
cause all  the  old  Ordronnaux'  that  had  once 
made  a  part  of  it  seemed  to  rise  in  every 
room  and  to  rebuke  her. 

There  were  not  many  neighbors,  nor  were 
those  very  congenial  —  a  few  wealthy  fami- 
lies who  of  late  years  came  for  the  summer 
scenery,  and  had  bought  some  acres  from 
the  small  farmers;  the  Ordronnaux'  owned 
mountain  and  forest  for  miles,  still  in  the 
original  grant  which  dated  back  nearly  to 
the  days  of  Captain  John  Mason.  When 
the  first  visits  were  received,  and  one  or  two 
stupid  tea-parties  given  and  returned,  the 
social  intercourse  was  almost  at  an  end. 

The  domestic  machinery  was  so  perfect 
that  where  Emilia  was,  no  murmur  of  it 
came.  In  the  long  bright  mornings,  the 
birds,  the  bees,  the  wind  in  the  leaves,  made 
all  the  sound  there  was.  Ordronnaux  was 
away,  perhaps,  riding  about  the  farm, 
whither  she  had  declined  to  ride  with  him, 


ORDRONNAUX  95 

selecting  the  timber  that  needed  felling  in 
the  woods,  or  else  writing  and  reading  in 
the  library ;  and  Emilia  was  very  lonely. 
In  the  evenings  they  sat  together,  as  she  felt 
necessary  in  her  sacrifice  to  outward  decency, 
for  they  had  an  unspoken  compact  of  civil- 
ity —  he  with  his  newspapers,  she  with  her 
fancy-work  or  book.  At  first  Ordronnaux 
read  aloud  whatever  was  of  interest;  but 
Emilia's  absent  air  of  revery  was  often  what 
no  gentleman  could  break  in  upon ;  and 
save  the  few  simple  phrases  uttered  occasion- 
ally, there  would  be  no  sound  the  evening 
through  but  the  plaintive  moaning  of  the 
^Eolian  harp  she  had  strung  in  a  hall-win- 
dow, and  which  nearly  drove  Ordronnaux 
wild.  Thus  the  loneliness  became  some- 
thing palpable,  and  out  of  its  intense  iso- 
lation Emilia  divined  that  she  was  to  be 
starved  into  love  —  and  all  the  rebel  in  her 
rose.  She  knew  that  she  was  wrong;  she 
felt  herself  wicked ;  the  feeling  only  made 
her  more  so.  In  some  inexplicable  way  she 
nursed  an  increasing  rancor  towards  Ordron- 
naux—  to  think  that  the  place  might  have 


96  ORDRONNAUX 

been  so  dear  to  her,  that  the  morning  rides 
in  the  green  sun  and  shadow  of  the  woods 
might  have  been  so  pleasant,  the  long  even- 
ings together  might  have  been  so  rapturous, 
his  gifts  so  precious,  if  she  had  but  loved 
her  husband !  That  she  did  not,  she  held 
to  be  his  fault,  not  hers.  "He  has  work 
before  him,  if  he  means  to  break  me  in  !  " 
she  said,  and  quite  aware  that  she  did  it  vi- 
ciously, she  laid  out  for  herself  a  course  of 
study  that  should  make  the  days  fly  —  but 
it  did  not.  "At  any  rate,"  she  said,  "it 
will  keep  me  from  losing  my  reason." 

Going  on  with  her  work  of  hating  Ordron- 
naux, —  for  indifference  toward  a  lover  must 
needs  harden  to  harshness  towards  a  jailer, — 
Emilia  took,  of  course,  no  pains  to  preserve 
his  admiration.  She  put  on  the  simple  gar- 
ments of  the  wardrobe  she  had  at  her  mar- 
riage ;  she  knotted  her  long  hair  in  the  easiest 
fashion.  Yet,  although  Ordronnaux,  remem- 
bering women  in  resplendent  toilets,  might 
wish  Emilia  would  array  herself  in  the  bright- 
ness that  belonged  to  the  Ordronnaux  ladies 
—  through  it  all  he  could  think  only  of  a 


ORDRONNAUX  97 

goddess  in  disguise,  for  she  could  not  change 
the  silver-sweet  tones  of  her  voice,  she  could 
not  change  the  warmth  of  carnation  on  her 
cheek,  the  depth  of  the  violet  in  her  eye,  and 
every  movement,  every  outline  was  only  flow- 
ing grace. 

As  for  Ordronnaux,  the  loneliness  reacted 
on  him  corrosively.  Though  he  loved  his 
home,  and  had  been  full  of  his  object  of  win- 
ning her  in  it,  yet  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
having  his  friends  about  him  here,  and  wide- 
hearthed  hospitality  had  been  the  order  of  the 
day.  Now  to  sit  before  the  statue  of  a  martyr 
for  hours  was  fast  getting  to  be  an  ordeal. 
It  was  not,  however,  that  mere  material  lone- 
liness of  Emilia's  that  he  felt, —  and  from 
which,  in  some  unwhispered  way,  she  yet  un- 
consciously looked  for  escape, —  it  was  the 
loneliness  of  the  inner  soul.  He  was  losing 
confidence ;  and  his  days  and  his  nights  were 
a  keen  misery.  With  all  his  passion  he  could 
not  choke  back  a  subtle,  acrimonious  under- 
current of  mortification  at  his  failure  ;  some- 
times a  swift  choler  tore  a  fiery  sentence  from 
his  lips, —  Emilia  only  glancing  up  in  a  silent 


98  ORDRONNAUX 

surprise  and  shrinking  closer  to  herself;  but 
he  saw  in  that  glance  the  wild  spirit  looking 
through  her  eyes  that  he  had  never  made 
captive.  Yet  sometimes  again  as  she  sat, 
unconscious  of  his  gaze,  tired  and  sad  and 
listless,  he  yearned  over  her,  he  felt  that  he 
must  take  her  in  his  arms  and  comfort  her  or 
his  heart  would  burst,  and  he  pitied  her  as 
you  would  pity  a  sick  child.  He  saw  that 
he  had  made  a  great  mistake ;  he  feared 
that  the  task  he  had  set  himself  was  an  im- 
possible one;  he  began  to  be  hopeless  of 
overcoming  the  hostility  in  which,  despite  its 
headstrong  folly,  he  could  see  a  germ  of 
justice. 

It  was  once  when  compassion  got  the 
better  of  his  more  selfish  determination,  as 
it  often  did  just  when  he  thought  his  resolu- 
tion was  the  sternest,  that  he  invited  her 
family  to  visit  her.  Emilia  countermanded 
the  invitation.  She  sent  her  sister  some  of 
Ordronnaux'  unused  gifts,  her  mother  the 
money  to  take  a  different  journey,  telling 
them,  briefly,  her  plans  had  changed.  She 
felt  that  they  had  sold  her,  and  she  had  not 


ORDRONNAUX  99 

yet  forgiven  them  enough  to  care  to  see 
them.  When  Ordronnaux  heard  of  this,  he 
turned  towards  Emilia  in  amazement,  "  I 
thought  I  was  giving  you  a  pleasure,  Emilia  !  " 
he  said.  "  Shall  I  never  find  myself  making 
you  happy  ? " 

She  threw  her  arms  up  suddenly  with  a 
gesture  of  abandon  and  despair.  "You  are 
making  me  devilish  !  "  she  said.  And  she 
rushed  past  him  from  the  room. 

He  had  worshipped  this  woman,  he  had 
expended  himself  in  her  service,  he  had 
bound  himself  in  iron  fetters  at  her  feet,  and 
she  told  him  that  his  presence,  his  efforts, 
his  love,  were  making  her  devilish  !  He  was 
mad  with  rage  —  an  insane  whirl  of  blind, 
angry  fury  in  which  he  lost  all  consciousness 
of  himself.  He  dashed  from  the  house  and 
traversed  for  hours,  uncovered,  the  rainy 
woods,  he  knew  not  where  or  how.  He 
never  knew  when  he  returned  —  he  found 
himself  in  bed ;  the  physician  and  nurse  be- 
side him ;  a  beautiful  shadow,  a  cold  and  un- 
pitying  phantom  of  a  wife,  going  and  coming 
about  him. 


ioo  ORDRONNAUX 

He  lay  there  and  looked  at  her  day  after 
day,  so  calm,  so  unmoved,  doing  her  technical 
duty,  and  doing  it  without  a  ray  of  warmth 
—  whether  she  read  to  him,  as  she  would 
have  read  beside  a  hospital  bed,  or  soothed 
his  aching  temples  with  the  magnetic  touch 
of  her  fingers,  or  sung  him  softly  to  sleep. 
He  was  weak  in  his  self-pity  to  think  it  was 
so  much  to  him,  so  little  to  her.  And  then 
he  marvelled  at  and  despised  himself. 

And  as  he  got  about,  a  great  change 
came  over  Ordronnaux. 

He  had  been  looking  at  the  past  as  one 
looks  at  the  wrong  side  of  a  tapestry,  and 
deriding  himself,  and  questioning  if  there 
were  woman  born  who  would  not  scout 
such  a  slave  as  he  had  been.  He  said  the 
glamour  of  beauty  had  deceived  him,  that 
he  was  like  the  poor  fellow  of  the  middle- 
ages  who  wedded  one  of  the  Wild  Ladies, 
and  found  her  not  flesh  and  blood.  He  said 
that  the  fever  had  burned  out  all  his  pas- 
sion, that  it  was  impossible  he  should  love 
Emilia  any  more. 

Sometimes  now,  indeed,  in  the  new  line 


ORDRONNAUX  101 

of  thought  which  he  allowed  himself,  Or- 
dronnaux  wondered  if  Emilia  discharged 
her  duty  so  perfectly  as  to  satisfy  herself 
—  she  whom  it  was  so  hard  to  satisfy  !  And 
in  this  wonder  he  found  himself  wondering 
if  there  were  any  other  whose  remembrance 
stood  between  him  and  his  wife ;  yet  he 
knew  there  was  not, —  since  she  had  never 
received  a  gallantry  more  pronounced  than 
the  giving  of  that  white  rose  in  the  picture- 
gallery  had  been, —  and  he  felt  like  one 
guilty  of  sacrilege.  But  an  idea  that  has 
found  entrance  into  the  mind,  like  vermin  in 
the  house,  is  not  easily  abolished ;  and  ob- 
serving her  in  her  cold  pride,  her  mechani- 
cal duty,  her  sublime  belief  that  no  fault 
was  hers,  he  suspected  her  worthiness.  As 
he  longed  for  her  love,  he  longed  for  her 
humiliation.  "  I  had  better  lose  her  alto- 
gether," he  said,  "  than  have  her  as  she  is. 
I  want  no  odalisque." 

Emilia  should  have  had  a  care ;  it  is  one 
thing  to  be  the  prisoner  of  a  magnanimous 
adorer,  another  to  be  that  of  an  offended 
master.  She  should  have  remembered  that 


102  ORDRONNAUX 

there  are  luscious  wines  which  make  a  sharp 

vinegar.       Ordronnaux   had    not    altogether 

,  deceived    himself;    he    must    at    that    time 

!have  ceased,  at  any  rate  for  awhile,  to  love 

Emilia. 

But  a  man  with  the  affairs  of  an  estate 
on  his  hands  does  not  give  all  his  attention 
to  affairs  of  the  heart ;  and  although  these 
might  be  the  dominant  of  Ordronnaux'  life, 
he  had  necessarily  to  bestow  a  good  deal 
of  time  on  more  material  considerations. 
Nevertheless  a  thought,  a  determination, 
that  has  once  taken  shape,  hardens  when 
you  are  not  thinking  of  it. 

"  I  met  Captain  Harriman  in  town  yes- 
terday," said  Ordronnaux  at  dinner  one 
day,  after  a  couple  of  nights'  absence. 
"He  is  to  be  married  in  March." 

"  It  is  settled  then,"  remarked  Emilia 
indifferently,  crumbling  her  bread. 

"You  are  not  enthusiastic  on  the  sub- 
ject," he  said  with  that  strange,  new  smile 
of  his,  although  she  did  not  lift  her  eyes  to 
see  it. 

"  On  marriage?     Oh,  no." 


ORDRONNAUX  103 

"  I  thought  you  might  be  interested ;  you 
were  such  friends.  Though  to  be  sure," 
lifting  his  eyebrows,  "  women's  friendships, 
like  their  other  emotions,  are  rather  in- 
scrutable." 

"  I  am  very  fond  of  Alice.  But  why 
she  should  leave  so  delightful  a  home  — " 

"  Perhaps  a  home  is  not  all  she  thinks 
of  in  marrying ! "  exclaimed  Ordronnaux. 
"  Well,"  he  added  quickly,  as  if  to  cover 
the  outburst,  "  I  asked  him  to  bring  Alice 
and  Louise  here  for  Christmas  ;  and  I  sup- 
pose Louise  will  like  to  have  Colonel  Greve 
invited  —  a  match,  I  imagine,  though  I 
have  not  seen  him  yet." 

"  They  have  never  been  in  a  hill  country 
in  winter,"  answered  Emilia,  as  if  to  make 
it  evident  that  she  considered  it  no  affair  of 
hers  who  came  or  went,  in  that  house. 

"  Nor  have  you  either,  Emilia." 

"  No,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  as  cool  as  the 
season  she  spoke  of. 

"  I  chose  that  time,"  said  Ordronnaux, 
"because  I  shall  be  going  and  coming  a 
good  deal  till  then,  if  not  afterward  also, 


io4  ORDRONNAUX 

off  and  on,  with  business.  I  hope  you 
will  not  be  more  lonesome  than  usual." 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Emilia.  And  if 
there  were  any  sarcasm  in  his  hope,  there 
was  as  much  in  her  assurance. 

But  in  the  compassion  that  so  frequently 
overcame  his  sternest  resolves, —  and  that, 
when  he  was  a  boy,  and  had  trapped  any 
little  wild  animal,  always  made  him  give  it 
one  chance  for  its  life, —  the  next  morning, 
after  the  servants  had  left  the  room,  and 
Ordronnaux  and  his  wife  had  returned  to 
the  perusal  of  the  letters  they  had  opened 
as  usual  and  laid  down  again  beside  their 
breakfast  plates,  he  glanced  up  from  a  long 
document  and  said :  "  I  have  been  think- 
ing that  you  will  find  so  little  to  amuse  you 
while  I  am  gone,  that  really  you  had  better 
accompany  me." 

"  Do  not  concern  yourself  about  me," 
she  cried  tartly,  with  a  deep  flush  on  her 
cheek  and  a  sparkle  in  her  eye,  and  escaped 
from  the  room  quickly.  Perhaps  it  was 
nothing  but  the  April  weather  of  her  moods 
in  which  now  every  day  there  came  storms 


ORDRONNAUX  105 

and  showers.  Perhaps  the  letter  she  had 
just  read  perplexed  her  or  incensed  her. 
Whatever  it  was,  she  had  the  day  for  second 
thoughts. 

"  By  the  Lord,  this  is  a  happy  home ! " 
cried  Ordronnaux,  stalking  from  the  room 
himself.  "  These  poles  shall  be  changed  for 
better  or  worse  by  spring !  "  And  he  did 
not  return  till  twilight. 

When  he  did  come  home,  though,  the  air 
was  serene  again.  A  fire  of  unhewn  logs, 
such  as,  later  in  the  season,  blazed  every- 
where through  the  house,  rolled  its  flames  in 
the  great  chimney-place,  and  diffused  warmth 
across  the  premature  chill  of  the  stormy 
night ;  and  Emilia  sat  beneath  the  lamp,  as 
beautiful  as  any  dream.  No  stranger  gazing 
through  the  pane  could  have  conjectured  how 
hollow  a  simulacrum  of  a  home  was  the 
charming  scene. 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Ordronnaux,  after  a 
while,  closing  his  book,  "  I  neglected  to  say 
yesterday, —  not,  of  course,  that  it  matters  to 
me  now, —  but  after  our  guests  arrive,  it  will 
give  me  pleasure  if  you  —  will  wear  — " 


106  ORDRONNAUX 

He  paused.  Whether  you  are  careless  of 
giving  offence  or  not,  it  is  difficult  to  com- 
mand a  person  to  wear  your  gifts  that  have 
been  scorned. 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  Emilia,  looking  up 
lightly.  "  All  my  splendor  is  at  their  ser- 
vice. I  should  not  think  of  anything  else." 
The  graciousness  of  air  and  tone  might  have 
been  disconcerting  to  Ordronnaux  a  little 
while  ago. 

Yet  Emilia  could  have  given  you  no  reason 
for  her  graciousness.  Only  her  heart  was 
something  lighter  than  it  had  been,  if  her 
brain  was  bewildered.  When  she  ran  up 
into  her  sitting-room  that  morning,  she  had 
opened  the  letter  crumpled  in  her  hand  and 
glanced  at  it  again,  as  if  to  make  sure  it  was 
no  fairy  paper  to  turn  into  withered  leaves 
—  perhaps  to  make  sure  that  any  one  dared 
so  address  her.  It  was  a  brief  letter,  as  the 
eyes  of  the  portrait  reading  over  her  shoulder 
might  have  seen : 

"  I  had  hoped  there  would  be  no  trouble 
in  your  lot.  But  I  saw  you  walking  in  the 
wood,  and  you  were  weeping;  I  have  seen 


ORDRONNAUX  107 

it  many  times.  Has  sorrow  so  early  cast  her 
shadow  across  you  ?  Can  you  not  step  into 
the  sunshine,  and  let  the  shadow  stay  where 
it  belongs  —  on  me  ?  Is  sympathy  of  value 
to  you  ?  Can  you  find  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  one  is  near  you,  not  a  stranger, 
even  though  the  tie  is  nothing  more  than  a 
dead  white  rose  ?  " 

As  Emilia  read  those  concluding  lines 
some  sound  made  her  turn  her  head,  and 
she  encountered  the  eyes  of  that  portrait. 
She  crushed  the  paper  together  under  the 
convicting  glance,  without  an  idea  why  she 
did  so,  and  hurriedly  went  away.  But  all 
day  she  carried  the  note  about  with  her, 
and  read  it  and  re-read  it ;  and  by  nightfall 
a  curious  exultation  filled  her,  as  she  thought 
there  was  one  person  in  the  world  she  might 
call  friend.  Father  and  mother  had  sacrificed 
her ;  Alice,  Louise,  and  her  companions  had 
but  hastened  on  the  sacrifice ;  here  was,  per- 
haps, one  friend  whom  she  might  really  call 
her  own  !  And  as  she  sat  under  the  lamp 
that  evening,  sheltered  as  her  face  was  with 
her  fan,  Ordronnaux  or  another  could  but 


108  ORDRONNAUX 

have  admired  the  half  smile  playing  round 
the  lip  and  the  dreamy  light  in  the  eye. 

Did  Emilia,  with  reflection,  if  not  with  in- 
stinct, resent  this  intrusion?  Did  she  feel 
any  outrage  upon  her  as  a  wife,  any  insult 
as  a  woman  ?  Not  after  that  first  bewilder- 
ment, the  first  shrinking,  the  first  blush. 
All  her  wrongs  she  carried  over  to  the  ac- 
count of  Ordronnaux;  it  was  owing  to  his 
false  step  that  she  could  be  the  recipient  of 
such  a  letter.  Should  she  answer  it  ?  Oh, 
no,  of  course  not.  Nor  could  she,  by  the 
way  ;  there  was  no  address  —  a  punctilio  that 
pleased  her.  Yet,  after  all,  it  was  not  un- 
pleasant to  have  had  it ;  it  was  not  unpleas- 
ant to  feel  a  reserve  of  strength  in  that 
unknown  ally.  An  older  woman  might 
have  been  wroth  with  the  writer  ;  but  Emilia 
felt  the  secret  of  her  discontent  safe  with  one 
who  cared  to  make  it  less,  and  valued  his 
commiseration  above  her  pride.  She  was 
extremely  young ;  she  was  at  variance  with 
everybody  ;  she  knew  nothing  of  the  world  ; 
she  needed  a  friend  sorely.  She  remembered 
but  very  dimly  the  half-glimpsed  face  of  the 


ORDRONNAUX  109 

hero  who  had  laid  the  flower  on  her  book  — 
yet  not  a  face,  she  was  sure,  ever  to  wear  a 
stain  of  dishonor,  the  possibility  not  occur- 
ring to  her,  only  the  impossibility.  She  was 
not  sorry  when,  two  days  later,  there  came 
another  note,  craving  forgiveness  if  the  first 
one  had  been  in  error,  asking  if  she  could 
think  that  her  wonderful  beauty  had  impelled 
him,  rather  than  the  beautiful  soul  behind  it, 
suggesting  that,  if  she  valued  the  writer's 
friendship,  she  should  wear,  as  she  walked 
upon  the  terrace  that  day,  a  white  rose. 

Ordronnaux  happened  to  be  in  the  green- 
house when  she  came  in,  for  roses  had  long 
since  done  blossoming  outside.  As  she 
passed  him,  he  himself  gathered  a  flower 
and  some  fragrant  leaves,  and  handed  them 
to  her,  with  a  mute  glance  of  his  dark  eyes. 
She  hesitated,  but  it  was  the  only  white  rose 
in  the  place ;  and  as  she  took  it,  though  it 
was  without  a  word,  the  act  of  hypocrisy 
crimsoned  her  face.  Perhaps  the  romantic 
consciousness  of  her  new  and  viewless  friend 
looking  at  her  from  some  mysterious  coign 
of  vantage  compensated  Emilia.  Ordron- 


no  ORDRONNAUX 

naux  turned  on  his  heel,  flicking  off  with  his 
stick,  to  the  gardener's  round-eyed  scandal, 
the  heads  of  a  whole  row  of  Japan  lilies  as 
he  walked  away. 

In  the  letter  of  cordial  thanks  that  came 
presently  to  Emilia  from  the  unknown,  this 
time  with  the  postmark  of  the  distant  city, 
an  address  was  given  to  which  she  might 
send  a  reply.  There  was  a  little  fire  on  her 
hearth,  for  the  mornings  and  nights  were 
now  cool  among  the  hills ;  Emilia  laid  the 
note  with  its  two  forerunners  on  the  coals, 
and  watched  them  shrivel  and  blaze  ere  she 
wrote  the  reply  whose  idea  she  at  first  had 
flouted. 

"  I  have  burned  your  letters.  They  were 
most  kind — too  kind  for  me.  I  do  not 
know  how  you  found  me  out.  I  do  not 
know  what  makes  me  trust  you  so  —  per- 
haps my  need.  But  I  must  try  to  do  my 
duty  alone." 

She  mailed  the  letter  herself,  walking  to 
the  village  post-office.  The  woods  through 
which  she  went  on  the  side  of  the  Cliff"  were 


ORDRONNAUX  m 

in  the  perfect  ripeness  of  their  green  growth  ; 
sometimes  a  red  branch  holding  out  a  torch 
to  illuminate  the  mossy  depths  where  all 
wild  vines  and  briers  ran  riot  over  the  sharp 
and  scattered  fragments  fallen  from  the  Cliff 
a  century  since ;  sometimes  a  wilderness  of 
withered  ferns  and  brakes  spreading  in  the 
shadow  a  field  of  the  cloth  of  gold.  A  royal 
wealth  of  asters  and  golden-rods  glistening 
with  gossamers  lined  all  the  path,  and  here 
and  there  a  brook,  swollen  by  the  early  rains, 
rushed  down  the  wayside  steep,  a  torrent  of 
raging  silver  falling  from  the  clouds,  and 
gentians  and  maiden-hair  received  the  spray. 
The  year  rested  like  a  full  tide  whose  ebb 
one  has  not  begun  to  perceive,  and  Emilia 
felt  the  cheeriness  soothe  her  perturbation. 
But  coming  out  upon  the  open  country,  and 
seeing  the  soft  low-hanging  mists  half  veiling 
the  winy  and  golden  mosaic  of  the  meadows, 
and  seeing  the  mountains  clothe  themselves 
in  new  forms  and  tender  colors  as  she  walked, 
the  earthly  purple  slopes,  with  all  their  bloom 
of  distance,  refining  into  the  clearer  light  of 
infinity  and  heaven,  she  felt  at  odds  with  the 


ii2  ORDRONNAUX 

great  peace  and  beauty.  "  I  am  nothing  but 
an  atom,"  she  said.  "  This  hard  nature 
goes  on  the  same  whether  I  am  wretched 
or  happy.  What  difference  does  it  make 
whether  I  am  good  or  bad  ? "  And  she 
went  along,  with  her  wounds  freshly  opened. 
As  she  came  inside  the  gates  she  met  Ordron- 
naux  waiting  to  make  the  customary  cere- 
monious adieux  ere  he  rode  to  the  station, 
amusing  himself  the  while  with  the  prancing 
of  his  badly  broken  horse.  He  smiled  as 
she  approached.  "  Good-bye,"  he  cried. 
"  I  shall  be  gone  perhaps  ten  days,"  and  he 
reined  up  his  horse  beside  her,  but  did  not 
dismount.  "  Now,"  he  said  gayly,  "  if  I 
were  a  knight  in  an  old  ballad,  you  would 
step  upon  my  foot  and  climb  behind  me, 
and  'cast  your  arms  about  me,'  and  we 
should  ride  away  and  see  the  world  to- 
gether !  "  It  was  but  lately  he  could  have 
spoken  in  that  light  manner  to  Emilia. 

"  How  can  you  mock  me  so  ?  "  she  said, 
and  hurried  on. 

If  Emilia  were  solitary  now,  there  was 
presently  a  certain  freedom  in  the  solitude, 


ORDRONNAUX  113 

a  comprehension  that  at  last  Ordronnaux 
cared  for  her  so  little  that  she  should  be 
annoyed  no  more  by  his  anxieties,  which 
sent  her  spirits  up  a  buoyant  and  defiant 
height,  and  made  her  feel  capable  of  wild 
and  daring  action.  It  was  an  unfortunate 
time  for  another  letter  to  arrive  from  the 
Unknown,  for  she  would  surely  answer  it. 

And  another  letter  came  from  him,  re- 
fusing to  be  silenced,  pronouncing  their  cor- 
respondence as  legitimate  as  that  of  any  other 
friendship,  declaring  himself,  in  deferentially 
masked,  but  unmistakable  language,  no  vo- 
tary, no  lover,  saying  that  through  great 
trouble  which  had  befallen  him  he  needed 
her  consolation  as  she  needed  his. 

Emilia,  of  course,  failed  to  see  the  imper- 
tinence of  the  very  existence  of  this  letter. 
Otherwise,  there  was  a  certain  delicacy  and 
firmness  in  its  tone  that  was  agreeable  to  her. 
When  it  went  on  with  some  slight  confi- 
dences, it  interested  her.  In  years  he  was 
not  far  before  her,  but  in  experience,  in  sen- 
sation, he  was  a  generation  her  senior,  the 
writer  said, —  trusting  possibly  to  Emilia's 


H4  ORDRONNAUX 

literal  reception  of  his  words, —  and  when 
they  met,  if  ever,  he  should  be  older  still  by 
all  the  crowded  experiences  of  the  enterprise 
he  was  about  to  undertake.  And  he  urged 
her  to  write  to  him  freely,  to  write  the  small 
incidents  of  her  days,  her  thoughts,  and 
fancies  —  a  distraction  to  her,  and  a  delight 
to  him. 

A.nd  Emilia  did. 

If  her  correspondent  were  one  who  had 
any  design  of  evil,  he  might  have  been  sur- 
prised at  the  simplicity  of  her  letters,  awe- 
struck, in  a  degree,  at  the  innocence  and 
purity  of  her  soul  as  those  letters  translated 
it,  while  week  by  week  passed  and  they  still 
came,  speaking  of  her  uneventful  life,  the 
books  she  read,  the  sights  she  saw,  the  re- 
flection those  sights  kindled  —  letters  deal- 
ing at  first  with  little  but  outside  objects, 
then  lingering  with  enthusiasm  over  the  ac- 
count of  some  book  she  had  come  across  in 
the  great  dark  library,  till  stimulated  by  re- 
plies, they  hurried  on  towards  emotional  and 
personal  confessions,  guileless  and  trifling 
confidings  of  a  hitherto  unsoiled  nature  ig- 


ORDRONNAUX  115 

norant  of  the  wrong  and  dangers  here,  but 
confidings  which  opened  the  way  to  closer 
intimacy.  In  one  letter  she  had  to  tell  of 
the  autumn  burning  of  the  brush  at  night, 
and  the  huge  apparitions  of  the  burners 
passing  before  the  blaze  from  vast  star-lit 
darkness  to  darkness,  and  of  the  contrast 
between  that  Dantean  scene  and  that  of  the 
first  snow  on  the  Chieftain's  head,  one  blush- 
ing sunrise  just  as  the  Indian  summer  came. 
And  if,  in  reply,  he  warned  her  against  be- 
coming the  spectator  at  scenic  effects  of  nat- 
ure rather  than  the  sharer  of  nature's  moods 
and  phases,  it  only  gave  her  a  greater  sense 
of  security  in  writing.  In  another  letter  she 
told  him  of  her  climbing  the  hill  in  the  late 
autumn  morning  to  see  a  rainbow  slowly 
throwing  its  arch  along,  and  building  across 
the  hills  beneath.  "A  wondrous  sight," 
she  wrote,  "  the  edge  of  a  far  blue  hill  grew 
green  and  vivid,  then  the  yellow  light  broke 
in  a  flash  beyond,  like  a  wave  whose  foam 
was  rosy,  and  as  the  rose,  the  gold,  the  green, 
came  on,  the  violet  followed,  the  mists  rose 
to  make  it,  weaving  to  and  fro  a  weft  spun 


n6      ORDRONNAUX 

of  the  very  dew  of  the  morning,  so  airy,  so 
unsubstantial,  and  yet,  as  the  arch  sprang 
whole  and  perfect,  so  firm  and  so  fixed,  that 
I  could  think  only  of  the  solid  stones  at  the 
foundation  of  the  earth,  the  shining  stones, 
rather,  at  the  foundation  of  the  City  of  God, 
you  remember,  with  its  chrysoprase,  its  ja- 
cinth and  amethyst.  St.  John  must  have 
climbed  a  mountain-top,  and  have  seen  just 
such  a  thing  as  this  beneath  him  before  he 
told  of  the  rainbow  like  an  emerald  round 
the  throne." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ? "  the  answer  came. 
"  For  my  part,  I  imagine  the  prophet,  as 
the  poet,  needs  no  more  actual  sight  than 
the  inner  apocalyptic  vision.  You  and  I  are 
perhaps  far  enough  from  the  City  of  God, 
—  I  am,  I  know, —  and  need  to  climb  the 
heights ;  but  to  St.  John  in  the  desert,  that 
City  descended  out  of  heaven.  Yet  you 
have  interpreted  the  meaning  of  your  rain- 
bow, the  everlasting  firmness  of  the  great 
viewless  laws,  better  than  words  interpret 
music." 

"  I  am  in  the  desert,  too,"  she  wrote;  "and 


ORDRONNAUX  117 

your  letters  are  bringing  me  a  heavenly  peace 
there.  And  peace  in  my  house,  too, —  for, 
as  one  in  it  comes  and  goes,  I  can  even 
pity  him  that  he  has  no  such  resource,  such 
haven  as  I  have,  and  can  feel  some  interest 
in  his  existence,  some  sorrow  for  his  state, 
and  the  eyes  of  his  dead  mother  do  not 
pain  me  as  they  did.  And  now  that  the 
winter  is  all  about  me,  and  I  am  shut  in  by 
one  of  its  great  white,  whirling,  moonlighted 
storms,  I  feel  like  a  cradled  child." 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  at  peace,"  he  wrote. 
"It  ought  to  give  me  peace  to  know  it.     But 

alas  ! Still  there  is  for  me  the  next  thing 

to  peace  —  effort ;  and  for  that  all  directions 
are  open.  What  if,  while  you  harmonize  the 
elements  of  your  life,  I  should  lose  myself 
striving  to  complete  a  harmony  only  less 
perfect  than  spiritual  unisons  can  be  ?  Do 
you  recall,  in  the  little  book  I  sent  you,  that 
conception  of  a  future  art  in  which  the  great 
science  and  beauty  of  color  should  be  devel- 
oped as  fully  as  that  of  sound  has  been  ? 
Since  nobody  feels  more  keenly  than  I  what 
may  be  the  opulence  of  the  unrevealed  re- 


n8  ORDRONNAUX 

serves  of  color  in  the  dark  and  chemic  rays, 
nobody  exults  more  keenly  in  the  depths  of 
the  unexhausted  wells  of  color  that  we  have, 
why  shall  not  I  begin  the  development  ?  To 
me  a  sheet  of  clear  and  pure  tint,  be  it  blush 
or  blue  or  amber,  gives  rapturous  and  inmost 
satisfaction ;  and  let  such  colors  flow  into 
one  another  with  soft  counterchange  and  sil- 
very blooms,  and  I  have  the  delight  that  a 
perfect  strain  of  music  gives.  Think  then, 
to  those  who  love  absolute  color  passion- 
ately, what  some  great  symphony,  founded 
on  the  seven  colors  as  on  the  seven  tones, 
might  be,  with  the  palpitating  glow  and 
gloom,  the  combination  of  its  chords,  the 
magnificent  movement  of  its  members  through 
all  delicious  fluctuation  to  complete  corre- 
spondence and  marriage !  Think  of  a  chro- 
mata  in  violet  minor,  with  its  radiant  corre- 
lations !  Think  of  that  fancy  of  Haweis' 
of  delicate  'melodies  composed  of  single 
floating  lights,  changing  and  melting  from 
one  slow  intensity  to  another,  through  the 
dark,  until  some  tender  dawn  of  opal  from 
below  might  perchance  receive  the  last  flut- 


ORDRONNAUX  119 

taring  pulse  of  ruby  light  and  prepare  the 
eye  for  some  new  passage  of  exquisite 
color  ! '  Well,  somebody  is  to  discover  the 
notation  from  which  these  marvels  are  to  be 
produced  —  why  not  I  ?  Somebody  is  to 
discover  the  instruments,  and  decide  whether 
they  shall  appeal  to  chemistry  or  to  elec- 
tricity. To  my  mind  those  instruments  are 
all  ready  for  the  final  touch.  For  since  color, 
as  well  as  sound,  is  the  result  of  vibration, 
all  that  is  necessary  may  be  to  combine  the 
initial  of  light  and  sound,  which  it  would 
seem  that  electricity  could  do  in  some  at- 
tachment to  the  present  musical  instrument ; 
so  that  the  strings,  for  instance,  should  pro- 
duce the  vibration  requisite  to  render  the 
violet  rays,  the  brass  the  brilliant  yellows, 
the  wood  the  deep  rich  reds.  Think  then 
of  the  orchestra  that  in  producing  any  match- 
less piece, —  the  Italian  Symphony, —  shall 
translate  every  tone  into  its  own  color,  or 
rather  every  color  into  its  own  tone,  and  you 
sit  with  all  that  changing  splendor  entrancing 
your  soul  to  the  accompaniment  of  its  per- 
fect music !  Yet,  I  suppose,  it  is  not  for 


120  ORDRONNAUX 

this  generation  to  do,  but  for  one  whose 
childhood  is  the  master  of  many  sciences. 
I  suppose  that  generation  is  to  come;  for 
since  education  in  the  parent  becomes  in- 
stinct in  the  child,  there  cannot  but  some 
day  spring  up  a  great  perfect  race  on  our 
ashes ! " 

Fanciful  speculations  —  but  these,  and 
such  as  these,  beguiled  Emilia  from  her- 
self. How  different,  she  thought,  from  the 
tame  and  commonplace  action  of  Ordron- 
naux'  mind,  as  she  had  seen  it !  And,  in 
return,  she  poured  out  her  own  ideas  as 
freely,  revealing  artlessly  an  organization 
open  on  every  side  to  the  impulses  of 
beauty,  and  responding  to  sweet  influences 
like  a  living  growth  still  adding  to  its  wealth 
and  strength.  It  would  have  been  evident 
to  any  reader  that  she  was  young,  and  that 
she  had  a  nature  to  be  moulded,  but  with  an 
individuality  withal  which  it  was  a  fascina- 
tion to  discover,  and  which  to  discover  was 
to  love  —  an  individuality  capable  of  ca- 
prices of  shy  and  sullen  reserve  to-day, 
and  bountiful  confession  to-morrow ;  with  a 


ORDRONNAUX  121 

temper  that  had  needed  some  hot  annealing 
of  trouble ;  with  a  heart  ready  as  a  rose  to 
open  with  all  its  burden  in  its  own  time 
under  fostering  suns,  but  not  to  be  torn 
apart  by  rude  fingers  without  destruction. 
It  would  have  been  no  wonder  if  the  reader 
of  letters  so  simple,  so  sweet,  so  confiding  as 
hers,  came  to  share  the  fate  of  all  who  knew 
Emilia, —  had  he  begun  in  hate  he  could 
have  ended  only  in  love,  —  if  he  abandoned 
himself  at  last  to  his  passion. 

Emilia  did  not  vex  herself  much  at  this 
time  about  Ordronnaux,  nor  did  he  trouble 
her  much  with  his  presence.  Tolerably 
convinced  that  the  old  adoration  of  her 
beauty  was  over  and  done  with,  she  paid 
little  heed  to  his  movements,  and  never 
asked  herself  if  his  love  were  capable  of 
arising  all  the  stronger  from  that  reaction. 
Whether  he  had  penetrated  the  secret  of 
her  letters,  or  not,  never  crossed  her  mind, 
for  it  never  crossed  her  mind  that  it  was 
a  secret.  When  she  saw  him,  outside  her 
window,  spending  half  the  day  breaking  in 
his  great  black  stallion,  she  was  forced  to 


122  ORDRONNAUX 

admire  the  two  animals  together,  outlined 
against  the  snow,  as  she  admired  any 
bronze  in  the  hall ;  but,  in  general,  his  dis- 
quiet, his  constant  going  and  coming,  his 
curious  scrutiny  of  herself,  his  abrupt  re- 
marks sometimes,  sometimes  his  strangely 
gentle  air,  the  undecipherable  smile  with 
which  she  more  than  once  found  him  re- 
garding her,  the  way  in  which  he  ceased  in 
the  midst  of  what  he  was  saying  and  sud- 
denly strode  from  the  room,  were  all  to 
her  but  parts  of  the  unaccountable  and 
rather  disagreeable  behavior  of  one  from 
whom  she  expected  nothing  better  and  to 
which  she  gave  no  second  thought.  Giv- 
ing it  no  second  thought,  of  course  she  saw 
no  struggle  between  love  and  indignation 
and  reproach. 

And  thus,  as  the  winter  had  folded  more 
and  more  closely  its  white  curtains  about 
Emilia,  the  passage  of  these  letters  had  been 
her  reliance.  There  was  a  strange  cold  splen- 
dor in  the  air,  and  the  icy  glare  from  the 
huge  Cliff, —  which  she  had  so  often  longed 
to  push  out  of  the  way, —  walled  her  out 


ORDRONNAUX  123 

from  the  world  like  the  frost  of  the  tomb. 
Her  friends  had  not  come  at  Christmas, 
having  been  detained  by  the  great  storms, 
the  cause  she  imagined  of  her  correspond- 
ent's delay  in  carrying  out  the  enterprise  he 
had  spoken  of,  which  she  had  taken  for 
granted  was  a  long  tour,  but  of  which  he 
had  made  no  further  mention.  Ordronnaux 
was  away  a  good  deal,  often  kept  away  by 
impenetrable  drifts ;  sometimes  he  was  gone 
on  dangerous  hunting  expeditions  for  days 
together  —  lying  at  the  bottom  of  some  cruel 
rift,  for  all  she  knew,  among  these  hills  that 
seemed  to  her  like  vast  creatures  of  some 
primordial  origin  crying  out  to  one  another 
now  and  then  in  the  thunder  of  an  avalanche 
upon  the  silent  night.  When  Ordronnaux 
was  at  home  he  spent  long  hours  in  the  li- 
brary by  himself.  But  she  obeyed  the  wish 
that  he  had  expressed,  and  dressed  every 
evening  as  for  an  occasion ;  she  thought, 
perhaps,  that  as  he  had  made  the  beauty  his 
property  he  had  a  right  to  see  it  set  as  he 
chose,  or  possibly  in  the  general  kindliness 
that  was  pervading  her  she  was  willing  to 


i24  ORDRONNAUX 

afford  him  pleasure;  possibly  she  could  no 
longer  feel  towards  him  as  once  she  did  — 
for  there  are  emotional  and  mental  processes 
of  unscrutable  secrecy  even  to  their  posses- 
sor. There  might  have  been  something 
heart-piercing  in  the  sight  of  her,  with  all 
her  pulsating  bloom  and  brightness,  as  re- 
mote in  that  world  of  her  own  thoughts  as 
if  she  were  a  being  of  another  race,  another 
planet.  She  was  no  longer  the  splendid  and 
stately  woman,  wearing  a  dignity  of  wifehood, 
but  a  beautiful  young  girl  again,  light-footed, 
light-hearted,  kindly  spoken,  breaking  into 
carols  as  she  moved  about  the  house,  living 
in  the  hidden  little  life  of  her  own  dreams. 
Whether  Ordronnaux  had  undergone  any 
new  change  in  her  regard  or  not,  sometimes 
he  seemed  to  feel  all  this,  and  he  threw  down 
his  book  and  walked  the  room,  where  they 
were  sitting,  by  the  half  hour.  Once  as  he 
came  in,  bringing  a  puff  of  frosty  air  with 
him,  from  the  piazza  where  he  had  been 
stalking,  he  went  and  leaned  over  her  chair, 
watching  the  bright  flower  she  wrought ;  as 
she  glanced  up  she  saw  there  was  a  strange 


ORDRONNAUX  125 

light  on  his  face,  his  lips  were  parted,  his 
face  fevered.  "Are  you  ill,  again?"  she 
exclaimed.  But  he  shook  his  head  and 
walked  away.  Presently  she  looked  up 
once  more.  "  I  am  not  good  company  for 
you,  am  I  ? "  she  said.  "  I  did  not  think 
till  lately  that  it  must  be  dull  for  you. 
Would  you  like  to  have  me  sing  to  you  ? " 
And  she  went  to  the  piano,  and  sang.  He 
followed,  and  turned  the  leaves  for  her; 
now  and  then  he  joined  in,  but  only  now 
and  then,  as  if  his  voice  were  not  quite  under 
his  control,  as  if  it  were  unequal  to  the  weight 
of  some  emotion.  When  she  rose,  she  held 
the  edge  of  the  piano,  as  if  it  were  all  she 
could  do,  as  she  said:  "  Do  you  know — I 
am  going  to  make  a  confession  — " 

"It  is  I  that  should  make  confession ! " 
he  cried  warmly. 

"  Oh  no,  indeed,"  she  said  in  that  calm 
silver  treble.  "You  have  done  so  much  to 
make  me  contented  here,  and  I  have  been  so 
ungracious  !  I  —  that  is  —  if —  if  we  cannot 
be  more,  we  can  at  least  be  friends  ? "  and 
she  held  her  hand  winningly  towards  him,  in 


126  ORDRONNAUX 

amazement  to  see  him  wheel  about  and 
march  out  of  the  room.  And  she  heard  him 
treading  the  crisp  snow  outside,  followed  by 
his  dogs. 

The  letters,  and  the  emotions  they  aroused, 
had  been  having  a  softening  effect  on  Emilia ; 
she  had  discerned  a  glimmer  of  her  culpabil- 
ity in  rendering  Ordronnaux'  home  offen- 
sive to  him.  She  had  made  her  effort, 
and  the  repulse  mortified  and  confounded 
her.  She  stood  a  moment,  silent  and  won- 
dering and  affronted,  and  then  she  went  to 
her  own  room  and  took  refuge  with  her  un- 
known friend  and  her  letters ;  and  she  had 
the  field  to  herself,  for  Ordronnaux  was  away 
again  at  daybreak. 

Emilia  began  to  live  simply  from  letter  to 
letter, —  to  reckon  her  time  by  them ;  the 
delay  of  one  depressed  and  its  hastening 
elated  her.  Presently  she  was  modelling 
her  thoughts  and  ways  after  the  ideas  and 
wishes  that  she  gathered  thus,  looking  at  the 
universe  through  another's  eyes  ;  and,  all  the 
time,  she  was  doing  her  utmost  to  be  worthy 
of  this  friendship  —  a  friendship  of  high 


ORDRONNAUX  127 

philosophy,  she  would  have  told  you,  since 
not  a  word  had  yet  occurred  in  all  these 
letters  to  put  her  on  her  guard.  If  a  letter 
lingered  now,  she  fancied  her  friend  were  ill ; 
and  she  was  in  a  flutter  of  apprehension  till 
she  heard;  when,  as  many  times,  a  heavy 
snow  blocked  the  trains  and  no  mails  came, 
she  walked  the  house  like  an  unquiet  ghost, 
realizing  what  it  would  be  to  her  if  those 
letters  never  came  again,  warm  and  flushed 
with  an  access  of  gratitude  that  they  had 
come  so  long,  trembling  directly  lest  the 
mind  she  so  valued  should  one  day  outgrow 
her  and  have  no  more  to  say  to  her  at  all. 
Poor  Ordronnaux'  telegrams,  that  from  time 
to  time  were  forwarded  from  the  station,  she 
hardly  glanced  at  thoroughly. 

One  March  morning  there  came  a  letter 
which  she  opened  with  her  usual  haste,  and 
her  face  fell  to  see  that,  instead  of  the  long 
pages  of  delight,  there  were  but  four  lines  — 
he  was  to  be  in  that  portion  of  the  country 
and  would  delay  over  a  train,  and  be  that 
day  in  the  light  wood  where  he,  unseen,  had 
seen  her  walk,  if  she  cared  to  meet  him. 


128  ORDRONNAUX 

If  she  cared  to  meet  him!  She  might 
have  known  how  she  had  cared  by  the  eager 
way  in  which  the  blood  surged  up  and 
crimsoned  all  her  face,  by  the  shaking  of  her 
hands  as  she  dressed  herself  hastily,  without 
a  thought  of  her  appearance,  thinking  only 
of  what  she  was  to  see,  and  hurrying  impet- 
uously along,  for  it  was  ten  o'clock,  and  at 
ten  he  had  said  he  would  be  there. 

She  entered  the  wood  where,  every  day, 
she  walked,  and  through  which  there  was 
always  a  trodden  path.  The  naked  boughs 
let  in  the  sunshine,  and  here  and  there  the 
crust  had  thawed  from  the  mossy  stones. 
The  red  hips  of  the  wild  rose,  the  skeleton 
seed-vessels  of  the  gerardia,  the  brown  leaves 
still  clinging  to  a  young  oak,  the  swelling 
buds  on  the  trees,  all  gave  the  place  a  sort 
of  stir  and  life,  even  in  that  nipping  air. 
Through  openings  of  the  lichened  stems, 
looking  down  over  the  low  country,  she 
could  see  the  dazzle  of  the  sunshine,  and  the 
blue  melting  to  a  soft  wide  blush  along  the 
far  horizon  and  giving  a  pale  flame-like 
aureole  to  all  the  pointed  pines.  Once  in  a 


ORDRONNAUX  129 

while  a  branch  caught  her  and  detained  her ; 
a  black  crow  rose  flappingly  and  startled  her, 
a  dark  green  hemlock  shivered  in  the  wind 
and  shook  down  its  silver  weight  about  her. 
She  thought  nothing  could  be  more  beauti- 
ful than  this  walk  through  the  yet  winter 
wood  to  meet  the  person  on  whom  it  seemed 
to  her  now  her  whole  world  swung.  She 
had  not  stopped  to  fasten  the  white  fur 
cloak,  with  its  black  fox  edgings  and  blue 
linings  that  she  wore,  her  chestnut  hair,  gilded 
in  the  sunshine,  was  blown  from  under  her 
hood,  her  cheeks  were  damask  in  the  fresh 
wind,  her  eyes  were  glowing,  her  mouth  was 
dimpled  with  its  eager  smile;  she  heard  a 
footstep  and  half  paused,  her  heart  in  her 
throat.  Now  she  should  see  him,  the  one 
who  had  given  a  value  to  life,  the  hero  whose 
dimly  seen,  dimly  remembered  face  she  had 
never  been  able  to  recall  —  and  Ordronnaux 
came  round  the  curve  of  the  path,  walking 
from  the  station  with  his  knapsack  on  his 
shoulder.  "  Have  you  come  to  meet  me  ?  " 
he  cried,  extending  his  hand.  "  How  did 
you  know  I  had  come  ?  I  did  not  telegraph, 


i3o  ORDRONNAUX 

purposely  —  I  thought  I  should  surprise 
you."  He  had  surprised  her.  And  of  course 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  turn  about, 
half  stupefied,  with  Ordronnaux,  and  walk 
quietly  back  again,  gathering  one  dead  thing 
and  another  as  she  choked  back  childish  tears 
of  disappointment.  Once  in  her  own  room 
again,  she  let  those  tears  come  in  a  flood.  A 
salt  and  bitter  flood.  But  out  of  no  bitterer 
or  salter  flood  was  it  that  once  before  Love 
rose  ! 

For,  as  the  drops  were  still  falling  through 
Emilia's  fingers  she  snatched  her  hands  from 
her  face  and  looked  about  her  in  a  sudden 
horror,  a  scorching  blush  tingled  over  her 
like  a  wave  of  hot  air,  from  head  to  foot,  her 
tears  seemed  to  turn  to  fire,  she  bounded  to 
her  feet  and  wrung  her  hands,  and  went  and 
hid  her  face,  and  wished  that  she  had  never 
been  born.  In  one  moment  she  had  seen 
the  precipice  upon  which  she  stood.  On 
which  she  stood?  Say  rather  the  height 
from  which  she  had  fallen,  from  which  she 
had  fallen  here  among  all  corrupt  things ! 

She  dragged  herself  through  the  day,  and 


ORDRONNAUX  131 

dressed  and  descended  to  dinner,  daring  to 
do  nothing  else ;  and  although  Ordronnaux' 
had  much  to  talk  of  that  was  pleasant, —  for 
he  had  been  at  Harriman's  wedding,  to  ex- 
cuse herself  from  which  she  had  used  the 
pretext  of  a  cold, —  yet  never  was  there  so 
long  or  so  cruel  an  evening  as  that,  before 
she  could  hide  herself  in  darkness. 

In  the  week  that  followed  now,  Emilia 
endured  anguish.  Forsaken,  she  felt,  dis- 
graced. Because  aware  of  them  herself  at 
last,  she  made  sure  that  her  sensations  were 
recognized  and  known  by  their  object  also. 
That  was  the  reason  he  neither  came  nor 
made  explanation,  not  because  Ordronnaux 
was  on  the  train, —  for  why  should  that  have 
hindered  him  ?  No,  she  was  served  as  she 
deserved.  The  sharpest  pang  of  all  was 
that  —  as  she  deserved  !  She  dare  not  hope 
for  another  letter ;  she  was  self-convicted  of 
crime  in  the  wish  for  one ;  she  felt  that  she 
had  become  a  thing  unfit  ever  to  enter 
again  into  communication  with  the  mind 
that  seemed  to  her  like  some  far  white 
spirit.  Blame  for  him,  in  the  casuistry  of 


132  ORDRONNAUX 

her  love,  she  did  not  dream  of;  he  was  a 
friend  simply  and  entirely;  it  was  she,  a 
wife,  on  whom  all  the  blame  must  rest  — 
how  could,  how  could  she  have  drifted  here, 
how  could  she  have  so  far  forgotten  her- 
self as  to  write  in  the  beginning !  Her 
own  self-reproach  was  too  vivid  to  let  her 
dwell  on  his  share,  or  in  her  simplicity  to 
remember  that  he  was  a  man,  in  the  current 
of  the  world,  who  knew  what  he  was  about. 
And  yet  she  longed  for  a  single  word ;  she 
shivered  one  instant  at  the  possibility  that, 
after  all,  he  might  not  know,  might  never 
know,  and  she  despaired  the  next  —  she 
knew  !  If  she  had  not  lost  already,  loss,  in- 
evitable loss,  only  to  be  bridged  by  death, 
was  before  her,  she  saw.  But  she  had  not 
reached  the  point  of  any  serious  thought, 
everything  with  her  yet  was  in  the  ferment 
of  emotion.  Her  nerves  were  all  alive  ;  she 
started  at  every  sound ;  she  cringed  at  Or- 
dronnaux'  most  quiet  words  ;  she  knew  what 
he  had  suffered  now,  and  she  paused,  even 
in  the  midst  of  her  pain,  wishing  she  could 
make  some  reparation.  When,  in  the  game 


ORDRONNAUX  133 

of  chess  that  he  one  night  proposed,  he  took 
her  ice-cold  hand  in  his,  to  move  her  pawn 
and  she  felt  the  heat  and  the  pulse  and  the 
tremor  there,  she  burst  into  tears.  But  Or- 
dronnaux  seemed  to  take  no  notice  of  these 
moods  —  why  should  he,  after  all  that  had 
gone  before  ? 

At  length,  as  Emilia  sat,  heavy-eyed  and 
pale  at  the  breakfast-table,  hoping  for  noth- 
ing any  more,  the  letters  being  brought  in,  it 
happened  that  Ordronnaux  handed  Emilia 
hers.  He  would  have  been  blind  not  to  see 
the  wild  light  that  suddenly  ran  like  summer 
lightning  through  her  eyes.  She  sat  on 
thorns,  hearing  him  read  from  one  of  his  let- 
ters that  Harriman  would  be  there  that  day 
with  Alice  and  Louise,  and  that  Colonel 
Greve  would  join  them  by  a  later  train ;  try- 
ing vainly  to  drink  her  coffee ;  conscious  of 
Ordronnaux'  frequent  gaze  until  his  depart- 
ure warranted  her  own,  and  she  could  tear 
open  her  letter. 

It  was  not  the  letter  that  Emilia  had  ex- 
pected or  hoped  for.  As  she  read  it,  alone 
in  her  room,  her  heart  leaped  up  and  almost 


i34  ORDRONNAUX 

stifled  her  with  its  swift  beatings.  In  the 
first  moment  she  clasped  it  to  her  breast  with 
ecstasy,  in  the  next  she  had  whirled  it  from 
her  to  the  floor.  But  she  ran  and  seized  it 
again,  kissed  it  passionately,  and  hurried  up 
and  down  the  room  with  it  as  a  caged  creature 
does,  or  as  one  might  go  whose  feet  were 
winged  with  joy. 

"  You  see  of  course  it  was  impossible  to 
go,"  he  said.  "  And  perhaps  it  was  as  well. 
For,  let  me  say  it,  —  if  I  had  seen  you  come 
smiling  towards  me,  your  soul  in  your  face, 
all  eager  and  glad  to  meet  me,  I  could  not 
have  done  anything  but  take  you  to  my 
heart !  Yes,  I  have  written  it !  Now  you 
know  —  what  yet  you  must  have  known  be- 
fore. I  love  you  !  I  love  you  !  I  love  you  ! 
Does  this  seem  recreant?  To  have  seen 
your  beautiful  spirit  unfolding  like  a  flower 
in  these  months,  and  have  done  otherwise, 
had  been  recreant  indeed  !  When  I  think  — 
as  I  do  think  !  —  that  you  also,  you  —  No, 
it  is  not  for  me  to  speak.  I  ask  nothing. 
Never  to  my  gaze  may  the  eye  brighten  or 
the  cheek  redden,  never  may  I  feel  the  dear 


ORDRONNAUX  135 

hair  touch  my  face  —  yet  with  a  word,  a  word, 
you  can  lead  me  out  of  darkness  into  light. 
But  say  it  or  not,  it  shall  be  enough  for  me 
to  know  that  I  love  you  and 

'  In  the  midmost  heart  of  grief 
My  passion  clasps  a  secret  joy ! '  ' 

It  would  have  been  out  of  the  question  for 
Emilia  to  go  down  stairs  again  that  day,  but 
for  the  fact  that  Captain  Harriman  and  his 
party  were  coming  and  she  must  brace  her- 
self to  the  exertion.  And  in  the  meantime 
what  was  she  to  do?  Answer  the  letter  — 
she  could  not.  But  as  she  lay  on  the  lounge, 
that  first  fervor  of  her  passion  spent,  a  lock 
of  her  loosened  hair  fell  across  her  neck ;  she 
rose  quickly  and  took  the  scissors  and  sev- 
ered it,  and  wrapping  the  bright  and  fragrant 
tress  in  an  envelope,  without  so  much  as  a 
single  pencilling  inside,  she  directed  it  with 
the  usual  address,  and  rang  the  bell  and  or- 
dered it  to  be  sent  with  the  other  letters  to 
the  post  —  nor  did  she  know  that  Ordron- 
naux  himself  took  the  letters  to  the  post  that 
day  on  the  way  to  meet  his  guests.  But  what 


136  ORDRONNAUX 

lover  could  have  desired  a  dearer    answer, 
could  have  had  a  tenderer  ? 

She  was  in  her  wrapper  still  when  they 
came,  and  her  heart  warm  now  to  all  the 
world,  she  ran  flying  down  the  stairs  to  re- 
ceive them,  though  the  wealth  of  that  un- 
braided  hair  was  still  streaming  about  her, 
radiant  with  the  happiness  she  had  not  yet 
begun  to  sift  or  search,  into  which  realization 
of  sin  or  sorrow  or  separation  had  not  come, 
the  rose  burning  on  her  cheek,  the  smiles 
wavering  about  her  lips;  and  Ordronnaux, 
having  directed  Harriman,  who  had  been 
there  before  and  knew  the  house,  to  his 
quarters,  attended  them  to  the  sitting-room, 
where,  sooth  to  say,  he  had  scarcely  been 
before  since  he  first  brought  Emilia  home. 
There  was  a  peculiar  excitement  about  Or- 
dronnaux that  day  —  you  could  not  tell 
whether  it  was  the  unquiet  of  joy  or  trouble ; 
but  Emilia  had  no  eyes  to  see  it.  Alice  and 
Louise  flitted  round  the  room,  looking  at  this 
thing  and  that;  Ordronnaux  standing  by  the 
fireplace  and  once  in  a  while  stealing  a  look 
at  Emilia  where  she  sat,  the  moment  that 


ORDRONNAUX  137 

any  one  ceased  talking  to  her,  wrapped  again 
in  her  rosy  dream.  And  presently  the  dress- 
ing-bell rang.  "  This  will  never  do,"  said 
Ordronnaux.  "Will  you  show  Mrs.  Harri- 
man  her  room,  Emilia  —  the  oriel  ?  I  sent 
Harriman  there.  And  Louise,  you  said,  you 
would  put  in  the  south  gable.  I  suppose 
Colonel  Greve  will  be  along  directly,  but 
John  will  take  care  of  him." 

"He  was  to  come  in  the  express,"  said 
Louise,  "  and  bribe  the  conductor  to  let  him 
off  at  your  station." 

"  I  shall  be  glad  to  meet  him  at  last ;  he 
is  an  elusive  fellow,  a  sort  of  Myth  of  a  Man 
who  did  Supernatural  things  with  a  battery." 

"  Prodigies  !  "  said  Alice. 

"  That  opens  a  new  field,"  exclaimed  Ord- 
ronnaux. 

"  'The  blood-red  blossom  of  war  with  a  heart  of  fire.' 

Ladies,  you  have  a  half  hour  to  settle  the 
affair  and  show  this  recluse  the  fashions  !  " 

"  What  a  perfect  place,  Emilia ! "  they 
cried,  as  she  led  the  way  to  the  south  gable. 
"  And  how  lovely  you  look  !  How  happy 
you  are ! " 


138  ORDRONNAUX 

"It  is  a  lonesome  place,"  she  answered, 
lest  they  should  discover  her  confusion. 

"  You  say  that  to  hide  yourself,  Emilia !  " 
cried  Alice  gayly.  "  Nothing  is  lonesome 
where  your  husband  is !  Oh,  I  could  live 
here  forever  with  — " 

She  paused,  blushing,  and  Emilia  blushed 
too,  blushed  red  and  redder  with  a  stinging 
blush  that  seemed  to  burn  and  brand  itself 
upon  her.  In  the  presence  of  this  pure  and 
faithful  young  wife  she  could  not  say  a  word, 
for  she  remembered  the  thing  she  had  just 
done. 

Perhaps  it  did  not  need  the  violet  velvet 
that  she  wore  to  heighten  the  color  of  her 
cheek,  when  Emilia  had  descended  to  dinner, 
and  make  Ordronnaux  feel  a  thrill  coursing 
through  him  at  the  spectacle  of  her  loveli- 
ness, as  she  stood  talking  with  Harriman 
while  they  waited  for  Colonel  Greve.  Was 
it  the  too  abundant  light,  was  it  the  heat 
that  suddenly  brought  a  deathly  pallor  to 
blanch  Emilia's  face  ?  She  grasped  the  back 
of  the  chair  beside  her,  her  heart  was  giving 
such  throbs  that  it  seemed  all  the  room 


ORDRONNAUX      135, 

could  hear  them,  she  glanced  at  Ordronnaux 
in  a  terror  to  see  him  start  and  tremble  and 
turn  as  white  himself.  For  fate  had  found 
him  out.  The  gentleman  who,  as  the  ser- 
vant announced  Colonel  Greve,  left  his 
crutch  and  came  forward  to  be  presented  to 
his  host  and  hostess,  was  no  other  than  the 
hero  of  the  white  rose. 

Emilia  bent  before  him,  as  cold  and  pallid 
that  moment  as  a  corpse.  But  Ordronnaux 
had  recovered  himself  and  was  beside  her, 
taking  the  Colonel's  hand  and  welcoming 
him  with  pleasant  cordiality.  Then  the 
new-comer  passed  to  Louise.  "  I  declare," 
he  said  under  his  breath,  "  your  friend,  the 
hostess,  is  the  most  wonderful  piece  of 
mechanism  I  ever  saw  !  Is  it  wax  or  mar- 
ble ?  You  don't  pretend  to  call  it  flesh  and 
blood?  Does  she  ever  speak?  It  is  Inez 
de  Castro  over  again  !  Now  I  will  tell  you 
a  secret,"  he  said,  taking  her  fan.  "  That  is 
the  rival  I  have  held  over  your  head  !  But 
I  should  hardly  have  known  her.  How  did 
I  ever  dare  to  give  her  a  flower !  You  see 
she  has  not  forgiven  the  liberty ! "  And 


140  ORDRONNAUX 

then  the  butler  had  entered  and  the  wonder- 
ful piece  of  mechanism  had  taken  his  arm 
and  they  were  at  the  table.  As  Emilia 
raised  her  eyes  to  him  a  moment,  she  saw 
that  he  wore  upon  the  lapel  of  his  coat  a 
little  Scotch  white  rose.  Ordronnaux  saw  it 
too,  and  he  was  grinding  his  teeth  at  the 
strange  coincidences  of  chance  while  he  sent 
the  Colonel  his  sherry. 

But  if  Emilia  had  been  able  to  utter  any 
words  during  the  dinner,  beyond  those  of 
simplest  civility,  she  had  no  opportunity. 
For  never  had  she  heard  or  seen  Ordronnaux 
precisely  as  then  —  it  was  true  that  circum- 
stances never  allowed  it  before,  for  gracious 
—  or  ungracious  —  coolness  on  the  part  of 
a  vis-a-vis  does  not  promote  conversational 
talent.  But  now,  as  if  some  hidden  sting 
urged  him,  jest  and  epigram  sparkled  from 
his  lips,  and  even  Emilia  was  obliged  to  lis- 
ten and  to  question  what  ailed  him,  and  to 
remember  by  and  by 

«« That  frail  blaze 
Of  excellence  that  neighbors  death," 


ORDRONNAUX  141 

as,  restlessly  brilliant,  with  an  artificial 
gayety,  perhaps,  that  hid  a  trouble  behind 
its  coruscation,  he  kept  Colonel  Greve  en- 
gaged so  constantly  that  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  his  addressing  an  undertone  to  his 
hostess,  had  he  desired  it,  until  the  evening 
ended  —  as  it  did  very  early,  on  account  of 
the  fatigues  of  the  long  journey  to  that  place 
on  the  winter  hills. 

As  Emilia  sat  on  the  hassock  in  her  sit- 
ting-room, a  few  moments  after  the  separa- 
tion down  stairs,  cowering  over  the  fallen 
ashes,  white  and  cold,  and  totally  bewildered, 
unable  to  comprehend  or  reconcile  the  events 
of  the  day,  clasping  her  hands  on  her  fore- 
head with  a  sense  that  she  must  be  going 
distracted,  Ordronnaux  rapped  upon  the 
door  leading  from  his  own  rooms,  and,  with- 
out waiting  for  permission,  came  in.  He 
went  to  the  long  window,  and  lingered  there 
a  moment,  listening  to  the  great  wind  that 
swept  by,  and  looking  out  silently  at  the 
picture  there — the  light  of  the  unseen  moon 
flooding  all  the  hollow  of  the  sapphire  sky, 
where  the  snow-clad  mountain  peak  hung 


Ha  ORDRONNAUX 

like  a  giant  crystal  glittering  in  many  colors 
on  the  dark. 

Then  he  came  and  threw  some  logs  upon 
the  fire, —  for  though  it  had  melted  that 
April  day  in  the  sun,  it  was  still  winter 
among  those  hills. 

As  the  odorous  black  birch  began  to  snap 
and  send  up  its  jets  of  flame,  she  looked  up 
and  saw  him  leaning  an  arm  upon  the  man- 
tel-shelf, and  gazing  down  at  her. 

"  Emilia,  my  dear  wife,"  said  he  then, 
gently,  "  can  you  listen  to  something  I  have 
to  say  to  you  ?  " 

She  could  not  speak ;  she  made  a  motion 
with  her  hand. 

"  Do  you  remember,"  he  said,  "  that  once 
I  swore  to  you  to  make  you  happy  ?  Well 
—  in  what  I  have  to  say  I  want  still  to  give 
you  the  least  pain,  the  greatest  happiness  I 
may.  I  think  it  was  early  last  Fall  that  you 
received  a  letter,  without  signature,  from  a 
person  who,  by  an  equivoque,  implied  that 
he  had  given  you  a  white  rose  ?  " 

She  looked  up  heavily,  as  he  went  on,  not 
so  much  astonished,  perhaps,  as  stunned. 


ORDRONNAUX  143 

"You  did  not  reply  to  the  letter,"  he 
said ;  "  though  in  response  to  the  next  one, 
you  wore  at  your  throat  the  flower  you  were 
asked  to  wear.  And  you  answered  the  third 
by  an  attempt  to  end  the  matter." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  slowly. 

"  But  others  followed.  You  were  per- 
suaded that  you  had  a  right  to  exchange 
letters  with  a  friend.  You  thought  of  no 
imprudence.  Soon  you  enjoyed  the  letters." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  again. 

"  As  your  friend  sketched  out  his  plans, 
and  hopes,  and  thoughts,  you  also  confided 
in  him.  There  was  nothing  to  hide  from 
one  who  knew  already  of  your  married  un- 
happiness.  You  told  him  all  the  delicate 
imaginings  and  desires  that  had  been  con- 
cealed —  from  me,  at  least  —  that  —  perhaps 
he  kindled  ? " 

"  Yes  !  "  she  said  again. 

"As  you  so  hesitatingly,  and  then  so 
freely,  revealed  to  him  the  reserves  of  your 
nature,  that  friend  became  your  lover.  He 
appointed  a  day  to  meet  you.  With  dis- 
appointment you  met  only  me." 


144  ORDRONNAUX 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"A  week  afterward  you  received  from 
him  a  passionate  declaration.  That  was 
this  morning.  And  your  reply  — " 

"  Do  not  think,"  she  said,  stolidly,  with 
her  dry  lips,  "  that  I  should  not  in  time  have 
told  you  all  this." 

"And  do  not  think  that  I  should  have 
troubled  you  about  it.  I  do  not  know," 
said  Ordronnaux,  leaving  her  and  walking 
up  and  down  after  his  habit,  "  I  cannot  say 
how  it  would  have  ended ;  but  for  the  acci- 
dent to-night  of  this  man  and  his  accursed 
white  rose,  this  man  whom  I  recognized  and 
whom  you  did,  as  the  one  who  dropped  his 
flower  on  your  book."  He  came  back  and 
stood  before  her  again.  "  Once  you  play- 
fully declared  that  you  had  a  confession  to 
make,"  said  he,  "  and  I  answered  that  it  was 
I  who  should  make  confession.  Are  you 
listening?  Emilia,  it  was  I  that  wrote  you 
the  letters." 

She  lifted  her  head,  and  stared  at  him  a 
moment.  "  It  is  impossible,"  she  said. 

"  No,"  said  Ordronnaux,  advancing  a  step, 


ORDRONNAUX  145 

with  a  flush  on  his  dark  face.  "It  is  not 
impossible.  It  is  true.  When  I  recovered 
from  the  illness  in  which  what  I  had  en- 
dured all  summer  ended,  I  felt  that  my  love 
for  you  had  burned  out,  and  that  if  I  kept 
the  ashes  warm  with  a  pleasant  indifference, 
it  was  as  much  as  I  could  hope.  And  then, 
as  I  saw  you  pursuing  a  cold  precision  of 
duty,  I  wondered  if  you  suffered  no  pang  of 
reproach,  of  pity,  if  you  had  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  yourself.  I  resolved  to  test 
you.  I  wrote  you  the  first  letter  —  " 

"  I  do  not  believe  you  !  "  she  cried.  "  It 
was  not  your  handwriting  !  " 

"  You  never  saw  my  handwriting,  Emilia. 
You  never  saw  my  handwriting  other  than 
in  those  letters.  I  always  telegraphed  you, 
if  you  will  remember.  I  swear  to  you  I 
wrote  them  —  " 

She  sprang  up  and  stood  before  him, 
trembling  from  head  to  foot. 

"  Pray,  hear  the  whole,"  cried  Ordron- 
naux.  And  he  took  her  hands  and  gently 
placed  her  in  the  great  arm-chair  that  he 
wheeled  where  the  flicker  of  the  firelight 


146  ORDRONNAUX 

fell  on  her  with  all  the  wild  beauty  of  that 
changing  spot  on  her  cheek,  that  fixed  lustre 
in  her  eye,  that  quiver  on  her  lip. 

"I  will  tell  you  the  truth,"  he  said.  "I 
was  sorry  when  you  came  to  the  greenhouse 
and  took  that  white  rose  from  me."  He 
paused  a  moment,  lifting  one  thing  and  an- 
other from  the  shelf  and  putting  it  down 
again,  as  he  leaned  over  the  blaze,  and  did 
not  look  at  her. 

"And  then  I  was  reckless,"  he  con- 
tinued. "  I  said  I  would  see  it  through.  I 
would  see  what  you  were  made  of.  It  could 
do  me  no  harm.  Perhaps  I  thought  — " 
he  faltered;  "yes,  perhaps  I  was  so  base," 
he  said,  slowly,  "  as  to  think  that  if  the  bond 
that  had  loosened  grew  irksome,  here  would 
be  the  means  of  destroying  it  in  my  own 
hand.  Yet  that  was  but  momentary,  a  mo- 
mentary madness.  When  your  first  letter 
came, —  that  little,  heart-broken  letter, —  it 
touched  me.  I  had  the  world  before  me ; 
you  had  nothing.  I  said  to  myself  I  would 
lighten  your  days  a  little,  if  any  human  in- 
terest could  do  it;  and  so  I  wrote.  And 


ORDRONNALJX  147 

then  —  you  know  the  rest,"  said  Ordron- 
naux,  "  As  week  by  week  those  letters  un- 
folded all  your  spirit,  and  I  had  the  very 
bloom  of  your  being  there,  the  love  that 
had  died  for  your  fair  face,  your  lips,  your 
smile,  was  born  again  for  the  sweet  soul  that 
I  was  discovering.  This  morning,  this  very 
morning,  I  handed  you  the  letter  which  con- 
tained the  avowal  of  that  love.  This  morn- 
ing I  had  your  reply."  And  he  drew  from 
his  breast  the  long  lock  of  bright  brown  hair, 
and  pressed  it  to  his  lips. 

Emilia  reached  forward,  and  snatched  it 
from  his  hand  and  threw  it  on  the  fire. 
The  flame  caught  it,  and  it  curled  and 
writhed,  snake-like,  to  a  cinder. 

"  What  do  I  care  ? "  cried  Ordronnaux, 
imperiously.  "  You  love  me.  At  last  I 
know  you  love  me  !  "  And  he  bent  toward 
her  with  his  open  arms. 

"  Never  !  "  cried  Emilia,  drawing  dog- 
gedly away.  "  Never  !  If  what  you  say  is 
true,  you  have  killed  the  man  I  loved !  i 
never  loved  a  man  who  was  capable  of  prac- 
tising a  fraud  !  " 


i48  ORDRONNAUX 

Ordronnaux  rose,  and  stood  as  if  a  blow 
had  been  dealt  him.  "You  are  right,"  he 
said,  hoarsely,  after  a  while.  "  Before  God, 
Emilia,  I  never  looked  at  it  so  till  now.  I 
should  have  told  you  that  fraud  and  an  Or- 
dronnaux —  " 

"  Yes,"  she  cried,  suddenly,  "  a  fraud ! 
Oh,  all  you  dead  and  gone  Ordronnaux  that 
from  these  walls  have  been  accusing  me  of 
crime  this  long,  long  week,  now  you  see 
where  all  your  boasted  honor  ends  !  Ends 
in  the  man  who  beguiles  his  own  wife  from 
virtue,  and  betrays  her  !  " 

There  was  a  moment's  silence,  in  which 
you  heard  the  drop  drip  from  the  eaves. 

"  Emilia,"  said  Ordronnaux  then,  still 
gently.  "  If  I  have  done  wrong,  are  you  the 
one  to  have  no  mercy  on  me  ? " 

Another  silence,  and  then  for  answer 
there  came  a  tempest  of  tears. 

"  Is  it  true,"  said  he,  when  the  tears  had 
passed,  and  there  had  been  no  sound  in  the 
room  save  the  keening  of  the  wind  and  the 
falling  and  shattering  of  one  icicle  and  an- 
other for  many  minutes,  "  is  it  true  that  I 


ORDRONNAUX  149 

have  killed  your  ideal  ?  Is  there  nothing 
left  from  which  you  can  revive  it  ?  No  love 
of  beauty  and  of  heaven  ?  No  aspiration  ? 
No  sympathy  in  books,  in  music,  in  color  ? 
No  personal  interest  whatever  ?  After  this 
winter's  companionship  in  those  letters,  can 
you  live  alone  and  live  at  all  ?  I  loved  your 
soul,  Emilia  —  I  thought  that  you  loved 
mine !  " 

He  turned  away.  And  then  he  came 
back  passionately.  He  stooped  and  took 
her,  impassive,  in  his  arms,  he  kissed  her 
unreturning  lips  in  one  long  throbbing  kiss 
—  a  kiss  that  was  half  a  sob.  Then  he  re- 
J^ased  her  and  went  back  to  the  window, 
where  he  had  lingered  when  he  first  came  in. 

The  room  suffocated  him,  it  seemed  as  if 
his  brain  were  on  fire,  he  threw  open  the 
valves  and  stepped  out  upon  the  little  bal- 
cony —  an  instant  too  soon.  For  there  came 
the  swift  rush  and  muffled  thunder  of  an 
avalanche  of  snow  and  ponderous  icicle  from 
the  gable-end  above,  and  Emilia  saw  Or- 
dronnaux  fall  beneath  the  shock,  saw  him  as 
if  that,  like  all  the  rest,  were  a  part  of  some 
bad  dream. 


150  ORDRONNAUX 

But  with  the  next  heart-beat, —  whether 
it  were  an  instinct  of  common  humanity 
that  stirred  in  her,  or  whether  that  long 
melting  kiss  had  warmed  her  back  to  newer, 
richer  life, —  she  started  from  her  chair,  and 
had  seized  Ordronnaux'  shoulders  and  had 
dragged  him  in,  the  snow  with  him,  had 
flung  together  the  valves  of  the  window 
behind  him,  and  was  kneeling  over  him  while 
the  flashing  of  the  firelight  disclosed  to  her 
the  white  sharp  face  as  fixed  as  death,  whiter 
for  the  thread  of  blood  that  trickled  from  a 
wound  beneath  the  hair. 

In  that  instant  a  withering  sense  may 
have  overwhelmed  her  of  what  she  lost 
in  losing  Ordronnaux  —  the  companionship, 
the  sympathy,  the  love  of  which  he  spoke. 
"  I  loved  your  soul,  too !  "  she  cried  out. 
"  Speak  to  me,  look  at  me  !  You  kissed 
me  a  moment  since,"  she  said,  her  face  on 
his,  "  kiss  me  again,  oh  Ordronnaux,  my 
love,  my  husband  !  " 

A  quiver  crept  through  the  frame  she 
half  upheld. 

Even  in  that  trance,  the  twin  of  death,  he 
must  have  felt  that  cry. 


ORDRONNAUX  151 

His  pulse  fluttered,  his  heart  was  beating 
in  great  plunges  —  yet  he  dared  not  open 
his  eyes  at  once,  lest  it  should  all  be  naught, 
till  again  he  felt  the  touch  of  that  soft  cheek, 
of  those  warm,  trembling  lips,  and  his  own 
lips  answered  and  detained  them. 

The  moon  came  round  with  all  her  purple 
shadows,  and  looked  at  them  sitting  there 
before  the  dying  embers,  in  that  rapturous 
hour  of  recital,  of  forgiveness,  of  passion  — 
an  hour  borrowing  something  of  its  bliss 
from  the  sorrow  it  had  so  nearly  touched, 
from  the  sorrow  yet  to  come !  On  what  a 
bright  world  the  sun  would  rise,  they 
thought !  What  messages  of  cheer,  though 
the  household  were  about  them,  would  flash 
between  the  eyes  of  husband  and  of  wife 
conscious  of  the  glad  new  secret  of  their 
happiness !  What  a  future  splendid  with 
hope,  rich  with  possession  stretched  before 
them  ! 

"  I  must  forgive  you,"  said  Emilia,  push- 
ing back  the  bright  fallen  hair.  "  Yet,  oh ! 
how  can  you  forgive  me  !  It  was  such  a 
fatal  flaw  in  me  —  I  see  it  all  now  —  I  was 


152  ORDRONNAUX 

so  ignorant !  But  your  love  must  be  to  me 
like  God's  love  —  " 

"  And  it  was  no  fatal  flaw  in  me  ? "  he 
cried.  "  Oh,  my  darling,  the  forgiving  is 
all  done  before  we  reach  heaven  !  Do  you 
know,  Emilia,  when  you  recalled  me  to  life 
there,  a  little  while  ago,  with  that  kiss, — 
that  kiss,  my  wife,  that  led  me  out  of  dark- 
ness into  light, —  I  said  to  myself  that  I  was 
dead,  that  I  was  in  heaven." 

"You  thought  you  deserved  heaven 
then?"  she  said  archly, 

"  At  any  rate,  I  have  it !  "  cried  Ordron- 
naux. 

And  let  us  hope  he  had.  For  the  icy 
spear  had  done  its  work,  its  slow  and  hidden 
work.  And,  as  his  head  fell  forward  with 
those  words,  the  man  who  held  her  in  his 
arms  was  dead. 


The  Wages  of  Sin 


The  Wages  of  Sin 


THE  brook  trickled  down  from  the 
pass  of  the  hills,  a  slender  stream  that 
you  could  step  across,  curving  and  looping, 
scattering  diamonds,  taking  the  sun  in  its 
brown  shallows.  Springs  bubbled  up  along 
the  way  to  feed  it,  and  trout  flashed  their 
red-jewelled  sides  in  its  pools,  other  brooks 
swelled  it  to  a  stream,  birches  bordered  it, 
willows  dipped  in  it,  pine  trees  darkened 
it,  marsh-mallows  lighted  its  coves,  arrow- 
heads and  the  scarlet  cardinals  saw  them- 
selves painted  there,  and  in  their  turn  the 
fringed  gentians  lifted  their  deep  blue  to 
match  the  blue  it  mirrored.  And  when  the 
lucid  ice  sheathed  it,  and  the  snow  powdered 
it,  Judith  Dauntry  could  still  hear  it  tinkling 
below,  as  it  wound  its  way  about  the  farm 
that  was  hers,  and  made  its  boundary.  Such 

'55 


156         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

as  it  was,  it  was  the  only  friend  she  had  in 
the  world. 

She  sat  high  up  in  the  pass,  one  gray  day, 
on  the  stone  from  under  which  the  brook 
bubbled,  and  looked  down  the  long  valley 
over  a  wide  and  wild  and  lonely  country  — 
a  drear  and  desolate  country  in  the  dun  hues 
of  late  autumn,  arched  by  an  immensity  of 
gray  wind-driven  clouds.  What  did  she  and 
her  pain  signify  in  all  this  wide  hollow  of 
earth  and  sky?  A  mote  in  the  immensity, 
a  sigh  melting  into  the  clouds  —  something 
that  would  pass  as  all  pain  passes.  Another 
woman  had  perhaps  sat  here  with  her  own 
pain  long  and  long  ago  —  and  who  knew  of 
it,  who  remembered  it?  It  was  as  if  it  had 
never  been.  But  for  Judith  now  the  pain 
swelled  and  filled  the  whole  space ;  there 
was  nothing  but  pain  in  the  world. 

A  watery  sunshine  struggled  through  the 
clouds,  just  as  a  man  came  round  the  thicket 
and  climbed  up  toward  her,  a  tall  and 
slender  stooping  shape,  at  the  sight  of  which 
the  tears  sprang  and  blinded  her  so  that  she 
saw  neither  sunshine  nor  lover.  But  they 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         157 

were  not  tears  for  herself.  Her  own  pain 
was  too  deep  and  dry  and  hard  for  tears. 
They  were  the  tears  of  something  like  an 
infinite  compassion  for  this  poor  creature 
who  asked  bread  of  her.  And  should  she 
give  him  a  stone? 

He  sat  down  beside  her  in  silence.  Pres- 
ently his  arm  stole  round  her ;  and  she  laid 
her  head  back  with  a  swift  sob  that  tore  its 
way  up  in  spite  of  her. 

"  Is  it  as  bad  as  that?  "  he  said. 

"It's  giving  up  everything,"  she  answered, 
without  moving.  "  People,  friends,  meet- 
ing, the  minister  —  good  name.  And  before 
long  you  —  you  —  will  believe  evil  of  me, 
too." 

"  I  !     You  think  so  !  " 

He  felt  her  shudder.  "  We  are  the  same 
thing,"  he  said  hotly.  "We  give  up  the 
world.  We  can  get  along  without  it.  You 
are  worth  the  world  to  me !  Besides,"  he 
added  presently,  and  more  slowly,  "  it  isn't 
as  if  it  was  not  right  in  the  sight  of 
God  —  " 

"  Don't  bring  God  into  it,"  she  cried  pas- 


158         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

sionately,  lifting  her  head,  and  tossing  the 
loose  and  long  black  hair  out  of  her  eyes, 
"  now,  or  ever !  We  are  giving  up  this 
world.  And  we  are  giving  up  the  other. 
Oh,  my  God !  I  can  never  say  my  prayers 
again ! "  And  she  stood  up,  her  hands 
pressed  to  her  eyes  as  if  they  would  shut 
out  light  forever. 

He  stood  up,  too.  "Well,"  he  said. 
"That's  all.  It  shan't  be.  I'll  go  back  — 
back  to  hell."  He  wavered  a  moment. 
The  sun  burst  out  of  the  cloud  and  gilded 
his  hair,  thin  pale  hair  like  a  child's,  blow- 
ing about  the  face,  the  face  that  was  weak 
and  wistful,  with  strange,  soft,  beautiful  eyes. 
"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  I'll  go  back  to  warming 
my  feet  in  the  moonshine.  I  can  rub  along 
with  Esther.  And  if  I  can't  —  there's  al- 
ways water  in  the  river.  As  for  the  child  — 
it's  better  than  nothing." 

"  Than  nothing,"  she  said. 

He  looked  at  her,  a  sort  of  sullen  sadness 
in  his  eyes.  "  I'll  break  your  heart  if  I 
stay,"  he  said. 

"  And   you'll   break   it  if  you   go  ! "  she 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         159 

cried.  And  she  moved  swiftly,  and  threw 
her  arms  about  him  and  pressed  her  lips  on 
his.  "  No,  no,  no  !  "  she  cried,  between  her 
kisses.  "  It  is  all  over.  It  is  done.  We 
shall  always  have  each  other.  What  do  we 
care  for  any  one  else!  Heaven  —  it  is  a 
dream,  a  fable !  It  will  be  heaven  to  be 
together.  And  after  that,  sleep  !  " 

"  In  one  grave." 

"  Oh,  why  do  you  speak  of  graves  ?  "  she 
exclaimed,  with  a  vehement  gesture. 

"  Because  it  would  be  better  if  you  were  in 
yours  now,  as  every  one  would  say." 

"  Very  well.  Let  us  say  the  worst  that 
can  be  said.  Let  us  call  it  a  grave.  But 
we  are  together  in  it.  We  shall  always  be 
together.  See,  the  sun  has  come  out,"  she 
cried  between  her  passionate  embraces.  "  I 
take  it  for  a  sign.  It  was  so  dreary  a 
moment  since,  and  now,  look ! "  and  she 
pointed  down  the  reaches  of  dun  gold  and 
misty  violet  along  the  great  plain.  "  It  is 
like  a  valley  in  Eden." 

"  And  we  the  first  man  and  woman." 

"  Do    you    know  where  we    are  ?      It  is 


i6o         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

the  old  Stone  of  Sacrifice  of  the  Sachems." 
She  stooped,  and  laid  her  hand  upon  it. 
"  I,  Judith  Dauntry,"  she  said,  "  promise 
you,  Ellis  GofF,  the  faithfulness,  the  obedi- 
ence, of  my  life  !  " 

He  bent,  too,  and  laid  his  hand,  cold  and 
trembling,  over  hers.  "And  I,  Ellis  GofF, 
take  the  sacrifice,"  he  said. 

And  if  a  more  bleeding  sacrifice  were  never 
laid  upon  the  stone,  neither  whispered  the 
thought  of  it.  As  she  straightened  herself 
and  gazed  at  him,  with  the  new  gladness  in 
her  eyes,  the  sun  transfigured  all  her  tall  and 
shapely  being  into  a  thing  of  majestic  beauty, 
lingered  in  the  brown  depths  of  her  eyes, 
gave  her  face  a  bloom,  the  edges  of  her  lips 
a  scarlet  transparence,  and  made  her  smile  a 
radiance.  "  Come,  now,"  she  said,  gathering 
her  cloak,  and  clasping  his  hand. 

She  stepped  across  the  brook,  and  paused 
over  the  pool  where  the  vertical  sunbeams 
turned  the  pebbles  at  bottom  into  live  jewels 
—  a  ruby,  an  emerald,  an  amethyst  —  flash- 
ing up  through  the  clear  depth.  She  re- 
leased her  grasp,  and  kneeled  down,  and 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         161 

dipped  both  hands  in  the  pure  water. 
"  See  !  "  she  said,  "  I  wash  off  all  the  old 
days,  the  old  faiths,  the  old  ways.  It  is  a 
baptism  into  the  new  —  no,  the  old,  the 
very  old !  Dip  your  hands  in,  too,  Ellis  ! 
Now  we  go  back  to  nature." 

She  did  not  notice  that  the  sun  went  in 
and  left  only  gray  pebbles  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pool.  She  forgot  her  sorrows,  her  fears, 
her  doubts,  her  misery  of  the  morning.  She 
went  along  in  the  sudden  blaze  of  a  joy 
burning  itself  out  as  swiftly  as  intensely. 

So  they  followed  the  brook's  way  till  it 
skirted  the  edge  of  Harden  Hill,  and  sud- 
denly with  rapids  and  falls  dipped  into  the 
valley,  where  they  lost  sight  of  the  source 
and  the  great  plain  and  saw  only  the  ring  of 
hills  and  the  farm,  around  one  promontory 
of  which  the  brook  washed  before  it  wound 
again  about  the  base  of  the  hills  and  went 
down  and  past  the  town  to  find  the  river 
and  at  last  the  embracing  sea. 

Through  the  cut  of  the  hills  one  saw  the 
sparkle  of  the  spire  below ;  no  other  dwell- 
ing was  in  sight;  the  wooded  slopes  en- 


161         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

circled  the  spot  like  giants  lying  at  their 
ease.  Here  in  the  dimple  of  rich  land  be- 
fore them  lay  Judith  Dauntry's  home,  and 
their  prison. 

The  farm  filled  the  hollow ;  except  for 
garden-spots,  when  it  became  hers  Judith 
had  it  laid  down  to  grass.  She  had  a  little 
money  at  interest,  left  her  with  the  farm  by 
her  parents,  who  had  come  from  England 
and  settled  here.  They  had  nothing  else, 
these  two ;  for  Ellis  had  given  Esther  his 
own  house,  and  she  had  sold  it  and  gone 
with  her  child  to  her  mother  —  perhaps  with 
the  vague  hope  that  he  would  follow  her 
when  the  spell  that  Judith  Dauntry  had  cast 
upon  him  should  come  to  naught.  He  had 
been  living  in  a  hut  in  the  woods  since  then. 

But  the  two  understood  what  was  before 
them.  They  would  expose  themselves  to 
the  retribution  of  insult  no  more  than  was 
unavoidable.  A  wandering  factor  had  al- 
ways bought  the  standing  grass  ;  the  garden- 
plots  would  give  them  vegetables  sufficient 
for  the  year ;  there  were  maples  in  the 
wood-lot  for  their  sugar;  and  for  the  rest 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         163 

there  were  the  domestic  animals,  and  there 
were  a  few  sheep  on  the  hillside  whose 
fleeces  Judith  would  spin  and  weave ;  and 
with  this  they  would  be  nearly  independent 
of  the  world.  At  present  they  had  clothes ; 
and  when  anything  further  was  needed  it  was 
not  impossible  for  Ellis  to  make  a  detour 
through  the  woods  and  over  the  hills  to 
places  where  he  was  unknown.  Once  a 
year  must  Judith  confront  the  human  race : 
when  she  went  to  draw  her  pittance  of 
money.  And  so  they  began  the  long  days 
and  nights. 

Judith  gave  herself  no  time  to  think. 
She  would  have  the  low,  dark  rooms  pleas- 
ant for  Ellis.  She  found  long  evergreen 
trailers;  and  she  brought  the  forest  she  had 
loved  into  the  house  with  great  hemlock 
boughs,  not  knowing  that  to  Ellis,  whose 
nature  was  that  to  which  companionship, 
people  and  the  gay  side  of  life  are  sympa- 
thetic, the  forest  and  its  gloom  and  awesome- 
ness  only  accented  trouble.  She  put  his 
clothes  in  order,  singing  all  day  long;  she 
made  him  savory  dishes,  and  filled  his  pipe ; 


164         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

and  wherever  she  was  in  the  house  on  the 
dark  and  dour  November  days  sunshine 
seemed  to  follow  her. 

For  a  while,  too,  he  met  her  on  this 
plane.  It  was  a  long  day-dream  of  joy. 
They  looked  neither  backward  nor  forward ; 
they  were  in  a  radiant  present,  indifferent  as 
the  madman  to  whom  it  matters  not  though 
palaces  fall  and  continents  crumble  while  he 
plays  with  straws  in  the  sunshine.  If  into 
this  day-dream  there  crept  the  least  faint 
suffusion  of  something  like  nightmare  —  I 
know  not  what  —  perhaps  an  unrecognized 
sense  each  of  wrong  to  the  other  —  neither 
at  first  perceived  it.  But  it  spread  like  the 
shadow  of  a  sailing  cloud;  it  never  lifted; 
and  it  darkened  now  and  then  to  gloom.  It 
was  some  time  before  Judith  in  her  own 
deep  content  observed  that  the  smile  on  his 
face  had  become  a  seldom  thing.  It  did  not 
fairly  enter  her  perception  till  the  night  of 
the  charivari. 

It  had  taken  many  weeks  for  the  virtue 
of  the  town  below  to  discover  and  realize 
and  resent  the  outrage  that  had  been  done 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         165 

it.  But  at  last  it  had  become  penetrated 
with  the  consciousness  of  sin  in  the  neigh- 
borhood ;  and  it  had  taken  punishment  into 
its  own  hands. 

It  was  in  the  dead  of  the  winter  night,  in 
the  middle  of  the  January  thaw,  that  Judith 
waked  with  hideous  cries  and  fierce  discords 
of  blaring  horns  rending  the  air  about  her. 
As  soon  as  she  could  move,  for  the  beating 
of  her  heart,  she  crept  to  the  window  and 
through  the  crack  of  the  curtain  looked  out 
on  a  mob  of  men  and  boys,  hooting  and 
hallooing,  beating  on  drums  and  gongs,  blow- 
ing fish-horns,  singing  ribald  songs,  uttering 
derisive  yells,  filling  all  the  place  with  an 
incredible  foulness  of  outcry.  Perhaps  it 
was  the  fit  way  to  characterize  guilt  —  it 
seemed  to  Judith  suddenly  as  if  she  were 
the  virtue  and  they  were  the  vice.  She 
went  back,  and  took  Ellis  in  her  arms,  and 
lay  there  feeling  the  long  shudders  that 
swept  him  from  head  to  foot.  She  did  not 
kiss  him,  or  caress  him.  All  at  once  she 
knew  that  her  kiss  or  caress  at  that  moment 
would  be  hateful  to  him.  She  only  held  his 


166      THE  WAGP:S  OF  SIN 

head  upon  her  breast,  and  clasped  him  closer 
as  insult  after  insult  struck  her,  and  vile 
words  pierced  her  ears  like  stabs.  And  she 
felt  him  cower  as  she  held  him. 

How  long  the  ordeal  might  have  lasted, 
one  cannot  say ;  but  the  south  wind  blowing 
down  the  gap  brought  with  it  a  burst  of 
rain ;  and  in  the  chill  and  soaking  shower 
the  crowd  melted  away. 

But  neither  Judith  nor  her  lover  stirred 
or  spoke  for  many  hours.  They  lay  awake 
till  the  dark  winter  dawn,  she  with  thrills 
of  apprehension  and  of  defiance  that  were 
agony,  he  blenching  and  horror-struck. 
Then  the  white  light  struck  up  the  ceiling, 
and  they  saw  that  the  rain  had  turned  to 
snow,  and  a  merciful  pure  mantle  covered 
all  signs  of  the  night.  "  I  have  been  the 
means  of  your  enduring  this ! "  he  said. 
And  then  he  shook  with  a  torrent  of  tears 
as  fierce  as  the  sleet  that  whipped  the  pane ; 
and  she  sat  beside  him,  and  lifted  his  head 
to  her  shoulder,  and  hushed  him,  pouring 
over  him  the  calmness  of  her  courage. 

"  If  we  go  away  ?  "  she  said,  half  unwill- 
ingly. 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         167 

"  Where  will  we  go  that  our  guilt  will  not 
go,  too  ?  "  he  cried. 

But  by  and  by  he  slept.  And  when  he 
came  down  the  fire  was  sparkling,  and  the 
coffee  was  hot,  and  there  was  work  to  do ; 
and  presently  anger  took  the  place  of  fear, 
and  dulness  finally  scarred  the  wounds  both 
of  anger  and  of  grief. 

"If  Esther  should  get  a  divorce  —  "  he 
said,  as  they  sat  beside  the  hearth  a  few 
nights  later,  the  fire  glancing  over  Judith's 
sumptuous  red  and  brown  colors  brightening 
his  white  face  into  something  ethereal  before 
her  eyes. 

"  Would  you  ask  her ! "  said  Judith. 
"  Would  you  accept  mercy  at  her  hands  !  " 

"  Then  we  could  marry ! "  the  whelp 
urged. 

"  And  with  no  sin  ?  "  asked  Judith,  laugh- 
ing bitterly.  "We  will  not  deceive  our- 
selves, at  any  rate.  The  sin  would  be  the 
same,  even  if  it  were  legalized.  Divorce 
simply  makes  sin  lawful.  And  then  it  is 
called  by  another  name.  It  is  the  same  still, 
only  it  ceases  to  be  a  crime  because  it  ceases 
to  be  against  law." 


168         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

"At  all  events  it  would  be  obeying  the 
law." 

"  I  have  no  voice  in  making  the  law,  why 
should  I  obey  it  ?  " 

"  I  had  a  voice,  though,"  said  Ellis. 

"  And  what  are  we  saying  anyway  ?  "  cried 
Judith,  joyously.  "  We  agreed  that  sin  had 
no  part  in  us,  that  we  were  returning  to 
nature ! " 

"Well,  well,"  he  added  presently,  "we 
can  sell  the  farm." 

"  No  one  will  buy  it,"  Judith  replied. 

"  Then  we  can  leave  it,  and  go  seek  our 
fortunes." 

"  On  the  road  ?  You  are  fit  for  it !  " 
cried  Judith,  her  blood  up,  her  resentment 
fired.  "  No  ;  we  will  stay  here.  Come  what 
will,  we  have  our  rights  here.  If  we  have 
done  wrong,  we  will  take  our  punishment 
here." 

Perhaps  she  wished  him  to  say  they  had 
done  no  wrong.  But  he  was  silent.  And 
Judith  had  already  begun  to  take  her  pun- 
ishment. 

The    mood    passed,    however,    with    the 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         169 

storm.  And  Ellis  found  his  fiddle  and 
played  out  his  dreams ;  and  as  she  listened 
and  gazed  at  him,  grown  white  and  thin, 
with  the  melancholy  droop  of  the  eye,  what 
was  still  any  remembrance  of  home  or  any 
hope  of  heaven  ?  When,  the  old  violin  laid 
aside,  Judith  sat  at  his  feet  before  the  fire, 
as  his  arm  lay  on  her  shoulder,  she  felt  her 
soul  .go  out  of  her  with  his  kiss  upon  her 
mouth ;  and  while  he  gazed  at  the  proud 
outlines  and  the  rich  colors  of  her  face  and 
at  the  soft  darkening  of  her  glowing  eyes 
brimming  with  tenderness,  here  was  home, 
and  here  was  heaven,  and  their  love  justified 
itself  to  him. 

At  last  the  soft  spring  weather  came,  with 
high  light  in  the  pale  azure,  with  the  gleam 
upon  the  hills  like  a  shimmer  of  green  sun- 
shine far  and  wide,  with  the  murmur  of  in- 
numerable water-courses,  with  a  heaven  full 
of  perfumed  air.  And  then  there  was  much 
to  do  out  of  doors,  and  she  helped  him  in 
the  garden-plots  and  in  the  fields,  and  she 
set  out  her  plants  and  slipped  them  and 
made  the  flower-beds.  And  the  smile  came 


iyo         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

back  to  his  face  and  the  song  to  his  lip,  and 
the  cunning  to  his  hand  upon  the  strings ; 
and  they  sat  at  night  upon  the  doorstone  in 
the  cool  sweet  dark  and  heard  the  shrill 
piping  of  frogs,  and  the  murmurs  far  away 
among  the  hills,  and  felt  themselves  a  part 
of  the  great  world  of  wonder  of  the  night, 
and  forgot  the  world  that  was  well  lost. 

Dusk  and  dawn  now  for  many  days  it 
had  been  hot  and  dry ;  and  the  corn  was 
high  in  the  field,  when  the  virtue  of  the 
town  happened  to  remember  itself,  and  a 
crowd,  led  largely  by  the  need  of  excitement 
and  the  inherent  love  of  baiting  the  defence- 
less, visited  the  farm,  with  horns  and  cat- 
calls, as  before,  with  showers  of  stones  and 
clamor  of  obscene  railing.  When  the  mob 
had  gone  there  was  hardly  a  whole  pane  of 
glass  left  in  the  house,  the  live  stock  were 
scared  away,  the  corn  was  trodden  into  the 
soil,  and  the  fire  that  had  destroyed  the  crop 
of  grass  was  still  pouring  down  the  slope  in 
billows  to  be  quenched  only  in  the  brook. 

It  chanced  that  Judith  and  Ellis  heard 
the  rout  coming,  and  had  time  to  escape  to 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         171 

a  secure  hiding-place  in  the  wood.  When 
at  daybreak  they  returned  to  the  desolated 
place,  Judith's  indignation  was  at  a  white 
heat.  "  We  pay  our  tax ! "  she  cried. 
"And  we  have  a  right  to  protection.  I 
will  go  to  the  selectmen  and  demand  repara- 
tion !  " 

"  Better  let  sleeping  dogs  lie,"  said  Ellis. 
"  If  those  people  chose  they  could  put  us  in 
the  state-prison.  We  can  claim  nothing  of 
the  law.  We  live  in  defiance  of  law."  And 
there  was  something  hard  and  glittering  in 
his  eye. 

"  Oh  !  "  cried  Judith,  "  you  regret  it !  " 

"  I  regret  nothing,"  said  he. 

"  Nothing  !  "  she  repeated  with  a  note  of 
joy.  "As  for  their  law,"  she  said  presently, 
"  it  is  the  thought  and  will  of  people  a  hun- 
dred years  ago.  Why  should  we  be  gov- 
erned by  the  whim  of  men  dead  for  a 
century  and  less  wise  than  we  when  living? 
We  are  a  law  to  ourselves  !  —  And  the  grass 
will  grow  again,"  she  added.  She  had  a 
sort  of  angry  joy,  as  if  she  took  sides  with 
martyrdom,  while  tramping  wood  and 


172         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

meadow  with  Ellis  to  find  the  cows,  to  see 
the  chickens  one  by  one  come  home  to 
roost,  waiting  on  him  as  he  reset  the  panes 
of  glass. 

When  all  was  done,  a  few  evenings  later, 
they  sat  at  the  brookside  where  the  stream 
bayed  out  before  winding  round  the  head 
of  the  farm,  and  watched  the  night  fall 
softly  through  the  flush  of  the  sunset 
painted  there.  For  the  only  good  fortune 
of  these  two  was  that  nature  seemed  to 
melt  into  their  condition,  to  be  their  friend 
and  their  consolation  —  they  in  some  way 
uncertain  of  being  all  in  all  to  each  other, 
she  uncertain  of  his  respect,  he  uncertain 
of  her  long  allegiance.  They  lingered  there 
as  if  they  dreaded  going  up  to  the  house, 
as  if  while  they  were  out  of  doors  they 
were  like  the  other  wild  things  of  the  out- 
door state  and  subject  to  no  laws  but  those 
of  unfettered  life.  He  rubbed  his  hands 
in  the  bayberry  growing  there,  in  order 
to  remove  the  scent  of  the  material  with 
which  he  had  been  working.  "It  is  only 
to  do  again,"  he  said.  "  It  would  be  better 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         173 

—  it  would  be  better  —  if  we  had  gone 
away." 

"  Perhaps  so.  In  the  first  place,"  said 
Judith,  remembering  that  once  she  had  half 
suggested  it. 

"  Then  no  one  would  have  known ;  and 
we  should  not  be  outcasts.  We  are  out- 
casts, Judith." 

"  I  do  not  mind  that,  if  you  do  not. 
And  if  we  had  gone  in  the  beginning  — 
But  now,  never !  "  cried  Judith.  "  I  will 
not  be  driven  by  wretches  like  that  from 
my  father's  house,  from  my  own  dwelling ! 
They  have  filled  me  with  hate  where  there 
was  nothing  but  kindness.  Let  them  look 
at  their  own  sins  !  " 

"  And  hate,"  said  Ellis,  "  is  suffering." 

"  You  loved  the  world,  the  people  of  the 
world,  more  than  I  did,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "but  I  love  you 
more  than  them." 

And  silently  they  stayed  there  under  the 
stars,  in  the  midnight  and  the  dew,  half 
dreaming,  half  awake,  in  each  other's  arms, 
the  dank  and  fragrant  wind  blowing  over 


174        THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

them  as  it  blows  over  graves,  till  the 
summer  night  was  wearing  itself  away  to 
dawn. 

The  two  had  but  little  more  than  repaired 
the  mischief  of  the  last  raid  when  they  were 
again  assailed  by  that  element  of  the  town 
which  found  the  thing  not  only  good  sport 
but  a  sort  of  sop  to  conscience.  This  time 
they  caught  Ellis  before  he  could  make  shel- 
ter. Possibly  they  had  not  meant  to  burn 
any  of  the  buildings,  but,  their  tar  taking  fire, 
the  burning  barn,  with  its  occupants,  lighted 
them  upon  their  hideous  work.  They  were 
satisfied  when  it  was  done ;  and  they  left 
in  a  straggling  body,  singing  songs  that 
echoed  into  the  firmament  that  had  blenched 
before  the  flames  which  Judith,  from  her 
nook  among  the  reeds,  saw  red  within  the 
brook,  as  if  the  brook  rolled  blood. 

The  horrible  object  that  was  creeping 
feebly  away  to  the  forest,  and  that  Judith 
found  and  brought  home,  by  that  time  ut- 
terly overcome,  bore  no  more  resemblance  to 
Ellis  Goff  than  any  shapeless  viscous  mass 
does  to  an  ivory  sculpture.  In  the  midst 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         175 

of  her  anguish  she  remembered  a  picture 
she  had  seen  of  some  foul  harpy.  But  she 
did  her  best,  swiftly  and  silently,  with  stim- 
ulants, with  warmth,  with  shards,  laboring 
all  night  and  day  and  night  again,  till  he 
was  able  to  help  himself,  and  nursing  him 
through  the  long  illness  of  wounds  and 
bruises  and  shattered  nerves.  He  was 
dearer  to  her  than  ever  now.  He  needed 
her.  And  if  the  poetry  had  gone  out  of  her 
love,  there  was  in  it  the  fierceness  of  tender- 
ness, the  passion  of  protection,  that  a  she- 
lion  may  feel  for  her  cub. 

One  day  Judith  had  gone  wandering 
barefoot  down  the  bed  of  the  brook,  look- 
ing for  leeches,  having  fancied  they  might 
be  of  use  to  Ellis  in  his  headaches.  Just 
where  the  shallows  ended,  some  children 
were  picking  berries  from  the  bushes  on  the 
banks  and  pulling  water-cresses  from  among 
the  stream-washed  pebbles.  Judith,  still  in 
the  water,  stood  and  watched  them  for  a 
moment.  Presently  one  of  them  ran  to  her 
with  a  stem  of  berries,  offering  them. 
"  You  must  not  eat  those  J  "  cried  Judith. 
"  They  are  poison  !  " 


176         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

The  child,  who  had  been  attracted  per- 
haps by  the  brown  and  gold  sunshine  of 
Judith's  face,  perhaps  through  some  con- 
genital force,  a  little  abashed  now  by  the 
rebuff,  turned  to  run,  when  Judith  put  out 
a  hand  to  detain  her  and  to  look  in  the  rosy 
dimpled  face  where  the  blue  eyes  beamed 
from  a  tangle  of  long  brown  lashes. 
"  What  is  your  name  ? "  she  asked. 

"  Ellie  Goff,"  was  the  reply.  "  We  have 
run  away,"  said  the  child,  with  a  sweet  in- 
fantile accent.  "  There  is  a  bad  woman  up 
here,  and  we  have  come  to  see  her." 

Judith  for  an  instant,  half  a  heart-beat, 
felt  as  if  an  adder  had  stung  her.  And  then 
the  blood  stormed  up  and  darkened  her 
eyes  as  she  gazed.  She  did  not  heed  the 
words  much,  after  the  first  blenching.  She 
did  not  give  the  child's  mother  a  thought. 
It  was  Ellis's  child.  Suddenly  she  snatched 
the  child  in  her  arms,  and  held  her  to  her 
heart  and  kissed  the  little  frightened  mouth, 
and  set  her  down  and  hurried  away  so 
quickly,  the  water  plashing  about  her,  that 
she  seemed  to  vanish.  But  from  that  time 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         177 

Judith  felt  an  emptiness,  a  strange  aching 
want,  not  for  anything  that  had  gone  out  of 
her  life,  but  for  something  that  would  never 
come  into  it. 

Ellis  was  still  very  weak  and  ill  when  the 
minister  came  up  the  brookside,  finding  no 
one  in  the  house,  and  saw  Judith  sitting  be- 
side the  bed  that  she  had  heaped  of  hemlock 
boughs  out  there,  and  on  which  Ellis  lay 
like  a  white  shadow. 

The  severity  with  which  the  good  man 
was  steeled  melted  a  little  at  the  sight. 
Then  his  long-stimulated  sense  of  right  and 
righteousness  revolted  against  the  pity. 
"Ellis  Goff!"  he  said  sternly.  "Where 
are  your  wife  and  child  ?  " 

Ellis  Goff  looked  at  him.  But  there  was 
not  a  ray  of  recognition  in  the  pale  eyes. 

"You  see,"  said  Judith,  her  dark  face 
now  colorless  with  waiting  and  watching  and 
wrath,  "to  what  you  and  your  sort  have 
brought  him  ! " 

"  Judith  Dauntry,"  said  the  minister,  "  I 
see  to  what  your  and  his  sin  has  brought 
him."  Then  after  a  moment,  and  with  a 


178         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

second  thought,  he  added :  "  But  I  did  not 
come  to  accuse  you.  I  came  to  help  you  — 
if  I  might." 

"  You  are  very  good,"  said  Judith,  from 
all  the  height  of  her  fault.  "We  do  not 
need  your  help." 

"  You  need  it  very  much,"  said  the  minis- 
ter gently.  "  No  one  has  ever  needed  it 
more." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Judith,  the  color  now 
sweeping  over  her  face  till  it  looked  like  a 
flower  in  the  sun.  "  We  decline  to  receive 
it.  Be  so  good  as  to  go  away." 

And  then,  as  he  did  not  turn,  she  stooped 
and  took  Ellis  in  her  strong  arms.  Cf  If  you 
do  not  go,  you  will  drive  us  out  of  the  light 
and  air,"  she  said. 

It  seemed  impossible  to  the  minister,  as 
he  looked  at  the  splendid  creature  suddenly 
flaming  there,  that  she  could  be  a  thing  of 
shame.  She  was,  rather,  like  some  great 
angel  of  succor  to  the  suffering.  Not  like 
those  forces  of  Death  and  Sleep  bearing  off 
Sarpedon  of  which  he  had  lately  been  read- 
ing, but  like  an  emanation  of  light  and  life. 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         179 

Except  so  far  as  earth  is  beautiful,  the 
earthly  and  the  animal  had  no  part  in  her 
just  then. 

"  No,"  said  he,  "  let  me  stay  a  little  while. 
That  is  too  big  a  burden  for  you.  Put  him 
down.  If  I  talk  with  you  I  will  not  offend 
you."  And  he  seated  himself  on  the  rock 
where  the  brook's  spray  in  seasons  of  flood 
had  thickened  the  moss  to  a  velvet  carpet. 

No  one  spoke  for  a  time.  The  sky  soared 
far  and  blue,  a  soft  wind  blew  through  it, 
birds  darted  here  and  there  in  it;  swallows 
skimmed  across  the  pools  that  answered  the 
gleam  of  their  wings  with  a  sword-blue  shim- 
mer; only  the  bubbling  of  the  brook  broke 
the  sweet  stillness,  running  on  all  unaware 
of  anything  but  feeding  springs  and  bending 
heavens  and  calling  seas. 

"  Judith,"  said  the  minister  at  last,  "  1 
knew  your  father  and  mother.  I  gave  them 
the  bread  of  communion.  I  christened  you. 
If  you  care  nothing  for  their  good  name,  nor 
for  the  Lord  above  us  all,  at  least  you  must 
know  that  the  life  you  are  living  is  —  small 
though  the  consideration  be  —  a  reproach  to 
my  work  among  my  people." 


180         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

"  I  live  my  own  life,"  said  Judith,  holding 
her  head  haughtily,  although  her  eyes  were 
lowered  under  their  heavy  white  lids. 

"  No  one  lives  his  life  alone.  The  world 
is  on  one  side  of  us,  the  law  of  God  upon 
the  other." 

"  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,"  said 
Judith  with  a  sudden  lightning  of  the  eyes. 

"  You  take  the  word  profanely  on  your 
lips.  Do  you  think  that  means  such  love  as 
yours  and  his  ?  " 

Judith  turned  and  gazed  at  the  white,  still 
being  on  the  dark  hemlock  boughs,  her 
heart  swelling  with  a  surging  tenderness. 
"  Oh,"  she  murmured  to  herself,  "  God  can 
yearn  to  his  creation  in  no  other  way  than  I 
yearn  toward  him !  "  But  she  said  nothing 
aloud. 

"You  know,"  said  the  minister,  still 
gently,  "  that  the  love  referred  to  is  that 
of  man  to  man,  of  God  in  man,  which  makes 
the  common  weal,  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity —  " 

"The  community  ! "  exclaimed  Judith,  fac- 
ing him  with  an  infinite  disdain.  "The  people 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         181 

who  destroy  crops,  who  burn  buildings  with 
the  animals  in  them,  singing  vile  songs,  call- 
ing vile  names,  subjecting  a  man  like  Ellis  — 
one  known  among  them  —  to  the  most  in- 
famous torture  short  of  crucifixion  —  mak- 
ing him  what  you  see  him  !  No.  I  came 
out  from  that  community.  I  left  it,  thank 
God  !  I  want  nothing  of  it." 

"And  you  want  everything,"  said  the 
minister  —  "its  science,  its  medicine,  its 
help,  its  sympathy." 

"  I  ask  nothing  of  it  but  that  it  shall  let 
me  alone.  I  will  have  —  I  swear  it !  I 
swear  it  by  his  sufferings  !  —  neither  its  for- 
giveness nor  its  forbearance  —  " 

"  Then  it  cannot  let  you  alone." 

"  I  curse  it !  "  said  Judith,  lifting  her  arms 
high  in  imprecation.  "  I  curse  it  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart !  " 

And  the  minister  went  away.  And  Judith 
sat  through  the  great  noon  stillness,  too 
much  of  a  tumult  in  her  soul  to  feel  any- 
thing of  the  brooding  power  in  that 

"  Eternal  sky 
Full  of  light  and  of  deity," 


1 82         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

watching  the  brook  go  by  sweeping  all  its 
enamel  of  damascene  blue  with  it,  a  new 
misery  coming  with  the  thought  that  so  life 
as  well  was  flowing  by  to  some  great  end 
where  she  and  Ellis  might  be  sundered  as 
widely  apart  as  any  two  drops  of  the  spray 
that  flashed  and  foamed  where  the  stream 
rippled  round  the  rock  and  sung  him  now 
to  sleep. 

But  the  brook  always  brought  her  com- 
fort;  she  saw  the  two  drops  melting  into 
one,  and  she  smiled,  changing  the  shadow 
of  the  screening  boughs  as  the  light  shifted. 
She  kneeled  and  held  his  thin  hand  above 
her  heart,  feeling  that  she  fought  any  fate 
that  would  come  between  them.  Then  she 
went  up  to  the  house  and  brought  down  his 
food  and  her  own  —  and  she  sat  watching 
him  through  the  wheeling  hours  without  a 
conscious  sensation  other  than  of  aching 
tenderness. 

It  was  the  next  Sunday  that  the  minister 
preached  a  sermon  on  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual sinner,  which  perhaps  he  did  not  very 
well  understand  himself;  which  certainly  his 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         183 

people  did  not  understand ;  but  the  spirit  of 
which  was  like  an  atmosphere  of  mercy. 
And  occupied,  perhaps,  with  their  own  in- 
iquities, the  townspeople  left  Ellis  and 
Judith  to  theirs. 

The  minister,  indeed,  came  up  again ; 
but  no  one  appeared.  Under  cover  of  dark- 
ness, too,  he  brought  medicines  and  strength- 
ening things  for  Ellis.  He  found  them 
afterward  where  he  had  left  them,  with  the 
book,  with  the  newspaper,  untouched.  And 
in  a  melancholy  dissatisfaction  with  himself, 
in  an  angry  rancor  against  sin,  and  a  dark 
foreboding  for  them,  he  left  them  to  their 
own  devices. 

The  doctor,  a  young  man  full  of  enthu- 
siasms, was  not  so  easily  repulsed.  "  I  am 
not  sure,"  he  said  to  Judith,  "that  I  am 
doing  you  a  kindness.  But  humanity  re- 
quires it.  Now  he  will  live.  And  that 
signifies  —  ? " 

"  Oh,  all  heaven  and  earth !  "  she  an- 
swered passionately. 

"  Is  it  really  then  so  much  worth  while  to 
you  ? " 


1 84        THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

"  It  is  worth  the  whole  of  life  and  of  eter- 
nity ! "  she  cried,  lifting  her  great  solemn 
eyes. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  he  said,  "  I  may  un- 
derstand the  theory  and  practice  of  medicine, 
but  I  do  not  understand  you.  What  is 
there  in  this  man  —  I  think  I  have  earned 
the  right  to  ask  —  that  you  should  give  up 
everything  life  has  to  offer  for  the  sake  of 
coming  into  this  prison  with  him  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  found  it  a  prison." 

"  You  will !  " 

"  As  it  may  be." 

"You  are  under  an  infatuation,  a  mad- 
ness," said  the  doctor,  still  probing  the  sore. 
"  You  should  be  saved  from  it.  You  were 
worth  saving  once.  If  Ellis  Goff  were 
stronger,  finer,  not  all  worthless  —  But  then 
he  would  not  be  here.  He  has  betrayed  his 
wife,  abandoned  his  child,  played  false  to  his 
friends.  A  weakling,  idle,  self-indulgent — " 

"You  have  done  all  you  can  for  him  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes.  There  is  nothing  left  but  to 
follow  the  regimen  I  have  given." 

"  There   is    your  fee,  then.      My  obliga- 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         185 

tion  for  your  work  has  forced  me  to  listen 
so  far.  But  no  more." 

And  the  doctor  went  out,  leaving  the  fee 
behind  him,  as  if  he  had  been  dismissed 
from  an  offended  royal  presence. 

Now  and  then,  partly  through  the  divine 
kindness  of  his  profession,  partly  through 
human  interest  and  curiosity,  he  came  again, 
but  never  to  suggest  to  her  that  Ellis  Goff 
was  not  a  prince  among  men,  and  always  to 
feel  that  she  regarded  himself  impersonally 
as  an  instrument  of  health,  like  air  or  light, 
not  as  one  with  whom  shame,  anger,  or  for- 
giveness had  any  place  or  part. 

But  forgiveness  was  rarely  in  her  thoughts. 
One  morning,  indeed,  when  the  climbing 
rose  that  her  mother  had  brought  from  the 
home  in  the  old  country  was  in  bloom,  full 
of  fragrance,  thrusting  out  its  countless 
sprays,  and  a  trailer  had  caught  her  gown 
as  if  one  stretched  a  hand  to  take  her,  and 
the  flower  with  the  dew  still  on  it  brushed 
its  velvet  against  her  cheek  and  breathed  its 
breath  on  her  lips,  the  face  of  her  mother 
seemed  to  swim  like  an  apparition  before 


i86         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

her,  and  the  knowledge  of  what  her 
mother's  thoughts  concerning  her  must  be 
wrapped  her  in  one  instant  like  a  flame. 
She  threw  her  arms  about  the  rose,  thorns 
and  all,  and  bowed  her  head  upon  them  and 
cried,  till  Ellis's  voice  in  the  distance,  weak 
and  ailing,  recalled  her  to  the  present. 

Once  a  year  in  her  camlet  cloak  and  her 
hood,  Judith  went  down  to  the  post-office, 
at  the  time  her  small  interest  money  was 
due,  went  to  the  savings-bank  and  drew  the 
slender  dividend,  went  to  the  town  hall  and 
paid  her  tax,  her  head  high,  her  eye  level, 
the  color  burning  on  her  dark  cheek;  and 
she  returned  by  the  path  along  the  brook, 
where  Ellis  came  to  meet  her.  At  sight  of 
him  she  threw  off  her  proud  demeanor  as 
if  it  had  been  a  coat  of  mail,  and  went  back 
with  his  hand  in  hers.  "  Who  saw  you,  Ju- 
dith ?  "  once  he  asked  tremulously. 

"  No  one,"  she  answered  calmly,  "  but 
the  business  men,  the  machines." 

She  did  not  tell  him  that  she  had  heard 
the  exclamation,  "  My  God !  Can  that  be 
Judith  Dauntry ! "  But  she  paused  by  a 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         187 

still,  dark  cove  of  the  brook,  and  with  a 
sunbeam  striking  her,  hung  over  it  a  mo- 
ment to  see  the  red  and  gold  splendor  of 
her  reflection,  the  grace  of  line  and  curve, 
the  lustre  of  glance  and  smile.  "  Yes,"  she 
said  to  herself,  as  she  replaced  her  hood,  "  it 
is  Judith  Dauntry.  And  all  that  she  was  in 
the  eyes  of  Ellis  GofFshe  is  still." 

Many  a  time  after  that  in  their  rambles 
did  she  pause  to  look  at  herself  in  one  of 
the  brook's  pools,  through  the  sudden  fear 
that  there  was  some  change  in  the  beauty 
that  the  little  looking-glass  of  the  house 
failed  to  give,  so  indifferent  Ellis  strangely 
seemed,  so  rapt  in  thoughts  other  than  any 
thought  of  her,  so  like  a  person  far  away 
from  home. 

Time  passed;  Ellis  played  on  the  old 
fiddle  still  —  dreams,  listless  melodies,  tune- 
less wanderings ;  often,  too,  with  a  false  note 
that  he  failed  to  mind.  He  spoke  little,  and 
he  strayed  off  into  the  woods,  and  was 
sometimes  gone  for  more  than  the  day, 
coming  home  dazed  and  limp  and  useless. 
Often  in  the  night  he  woke  with  a  cold 


188         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

sweat  of  terror,  the  sound  of  the  old  horns 
and  cries  in  his  ears,  clasping  her,  imploring 
her  protection.  So  seldom  had  his  endear- 
ments grown  that  even  these  moments  gave 
her  a  sort  of  fearful  joy  while  she  held  him 
in  her  strong  young  arms  and  soothed  and 
hushed  him  off  to  sleep  again. 

It  became  evident  to  Judith,  by  and  by, 
that  that  last  dreadful  night  had  wrought  Ellis 
a  wrong  from  which  he  was  not  to  recover  — 
as  if  he  felt  himself  to  be  the  thing  his  tort- 
urers had  made  him.  The  abasement  of  it 
had  become  his.  She  had  brought  it  upon 
him,  she  said ;  and  her  defiance  of  the  world 
sank  before  the  fact. 

She  resolved,  although  but  vaguely,  that 
they  should  go  away  now,  as  soon  as  the 
means  could  be  compassed.  A  change  of 
base,  a  new  existence,  might  revive  the  intel- 
ligence that  had  failed  with  self-respect. 
And  she  began  to  spare  from  their  small  in- 
come, pinching  and  starving  and  living  on 
the  hope  of  it.  But  as  soon  as  the  little 
money  was  saved  it  had  to  be  spent,  after 
Judith's  long  tramp  across  the  hill  and  dusty 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         189 

highway  to  the  town  where  she  was  not 
known,  for  something  necessary  to  Ellis's 
recovery.  Season  after  season  passed,  and 
they  were  still  there. 

One  day  Ellis  came  home  from  a  day  and 
night's  ramble  in  the  woods  of  Harden  Hill. 
He  had  met  some  charcoal-burners  there 
and  had  made  fellowship  with  them.  Now 
he  staggered  up  the  grass,  and  fell  across  the 
doorstep.  She  ran  to  raise  him :  but  for 
her  long  habit  of  care  she  would  have 
dropped  him  as  quickly,  in  his  malodorous 
and  revolting  condition.  The  contents  of 
their  jugs  had  been  urged  upon  him  till  he 
was  beside  himself.  Presently  the  experi- 
ence was  repeated.  When  she  went  for  the 
little  hoard  of  money  it  was  gone.  When 
the  thing  had  happened  the  third  time,  she 
ceased  to  save  a  penny.  It  was,  however,  a 
rare  occurrence  afterward ;  but  she  never  felt 
entirely  safe  except  when  she  had  left  him 
asleep  and  had  come  down  at  night  to  the 
brookside  to  be  alone  with  the  stars.  In 
some  strange  way  the  murmuring  of  the 
brook  seemed  always  the  voice  of  a  friend. 


190         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

"  See,"  it  said  then,  "  when  I  am  still  I  mir- 
ror the  stars  of  heaven.  Be  still,  too.  Some 
time  I  shall  find  the  great  sea,  and  the 
mighty  crests  will  take  me,  and  I  shall  know 
myself  no  more."  Alas  !  It  had  come  to 
this  !  Still  in  the  flush  of  youth,  still  living, 
still  loving,  she  was  looking  to  death  as  a 
refuge.  Often,  of  a  summer  morning,  she 
took  her  work  out  to  the  brookside ;  the 
busy  babble  of  the  water  gave  them  both  a 
sense  of  the  stir  of  the  world.  Fortunate 
brook,  it  was  going  somewhere !  Often 
there  was  no  work;  and  while  Ellis  thought 
he  angled  for  trout,  she  idly  dreamed  dis- 
jointed dreams  —  for  she  might  not  think  of 
that  past  before  Ellis  came  into  her  life ;  and 
there  was  no  future.  More  often  than 
otherwise  the  texts  her  father  had  used  to 
read  aloud  would  start  up  in  her  memory, 
texts  that  in  those  days  had  meant  nothing 
to  her,  and  now  meant  an  unformed  terror. 
"  I  will  kindle  a  fire  in  thee,  and  it  shall 
devour  every  green  tree  in  thee,"  she  said. 
And  then  the  bitter  words  recurred  to  her 
memory  :  "  Thou  shalt  drink  of  thy  sister's 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         191 

cup,  deep  and  large  —  it  containeth  much  — 
thou  shalt  be  filled  with  drunkenness  and 
sorrow,  with  the  cup  of  abomination  and 
desolation."  The  intense  luxuriance  of 
green  in  leaf  and  bough,  the  crystal  floods 
of  light,  the  singing  wind,  the  billowing  fra- 
grances and  woody  spices,  the  redundance 
of  life  in  all  the  springing,  growing  summer, 
no  longer  gladdened  her,  it  made  her  tremble. 
"  When  the  whole  earth  rejoiceth  I  will  make 
thee  desolate  !  "  she  said. 

Ellis  did  no  work  now ;  Judith  did  it  all, 
outdoors  and  within.  If  she  grew  hard 
and  sinewy  and  old  before  her  time,  there 
was  none  to  see  but  Ellis  —  and  did  he 
care?  In  the  summers  he  went  to  bed  like 
a  child,  at  nightfall ;  and  she  sat  on  the 
sunken  doorstep,  sometimes  thinking  bitter 
thoughts,  sometimes  a  sweet  memory  touch- 
ing her  in  the  dark  like  a  wandering  per- 
fume, sometimes  her  mind  as  empty  as  the 
vast  dusk  across  which  the  bats  flitted  indis- 
tinctly. Of  a  winter  night  he  slept  in  his 
chair,  and  she  mended  their  clothes  on  the 
other  side  of  the  fire.  And  it  came  about 


i92         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

at  last  that  observing  him,  thin,  pallid,  va- 
cant, she  felt  the  bounding  fulness  of  her 
own  life,  and  saw  as  plainly  as  if  it  were 
before  her  eyes  that  the  bubble  she  had 
grasped  had  broken  between  her  fingers. 

It  made  no  difference.  If  it  were  not  the 
old  passionate  love,  it  was  pity.  And  the 
pity  was  a  pain.  And  the  pity  was  all  he 
needed. 

"  You  treat  me  like  a  child,"  he  said  petu- 
lantly at  some  precaution  she  took. 

"Well ;  it  is  good  to  be  a  child,"  she  an- 
swered. 

"  Yes.  I  should  like  to  be  a  child  again. 
I  should  not  do  just  as  I  have  done,"  he 
said,  after  a  moment.  "  Perhaps  I  should 
not  be  here.  Would  you  be  here  again, 
Judith  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Judith. 

"  I  don't  suppose  any  one  would  call  you 
a  good  woman,  Judith  ? "  then  he  asked 
plaintively. 

"  No,"  said  Judith.  But  her  eyes  dark- 
ened. 

"  Then  it  doesn't  matter  if  I  wouldn't  do 
as  you  would? " 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         193 

"  Nothing  matters  now,"  said  Judith. 

"  Are  you  angry,  Judith  ?  They  used  to 
say  you  had  a  temper.  Do  you  remember 
the  dance  when  all  the  men  wanted  to  dance 
with  you  so  that  you  thought  they  were 
making  game,  and  it  affronted  you,  and  you 
started  for  home  alone,  and  I  ran  after  and 
went  along  with  you  ?  I  could,  you  know. 
I  was  a  married  man.  And  they  drank  your 
health  at  the  supper  afterward.  f  Judith 
Dauntry  ! '  Ross  Marvin  said.  c  A  name  to 
conjure  with  ! '  And  Ben  Turner  called  out, 
'  Don't  use  that  name  too  freely  ! '  And  of 
course  the  girls  didn't  like  it.  f  Unless  you 
want  to  see  a  pair  of  black  eyes  flash  light- 
ning ! '  said  Ann  Talbot.  Judith  Dauntry 
had  black  eyes,  you  know.  That  was  in 
the  good  old  days.  Yes,  that  night  was  the 
beginning,  Judith.  Your  father  was  at  the 
gate  —  he  was  a  good  man  — " 

"  Don't !  "  cried  Judith  sharply. 

"  Don't  what?  —  He  died  next  year.  Yes. 
Sometimes,  do  you  know,  Judith,  I  seem  to 
myself  like  another  man.  It's  a  long  while 
ago,  isn't  it?  There  was  a  woman  named 


i94         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

Esther —  Judith!  wasn't  Ross  Marvin, 
wasn't  Ben  Turner,  with  the  men  that  came 
up  here  one  black  night  ?  There  was  a 
black  night?  It  wasn't  a  dream,  a  night- 
mare, was  it,  Judith  ?  Oh,  Judith,  come 
here,  take  hold  of  me,  help  me  !  "  And  un- 
til he  forgot  himself  again  Judith  comforted 
him  as  a  mother  comforts  her  nursling. 

One  summer  crept  by  after  another. 
There  was  nothing  by  which  to  tell  this 
winter  from  the  last.  They  saw  no  people, 
except  the  chance  wayfarer  or  the  charcoal- 
burners  ;  they  had  no  newspaper ;  no  whis- 
per of  the  way  the  world  went  came  to 
them.  The  minister  died;  Esther  died; 
they  never  heard  of  it.  A  pestilence  of 
fever  passed ;  it  did  not  touch  them.  Wai- 
swept  its  red  fire  over  the  land;  they  felt 
nothing  of  it.  They  were  forgotten ;  and 
they  did  not  know  it. 

If  sometimes  an  infinite  weariness  took 
possession  of  Judith,  if  sometimes  this  weak 
and  querulous  shadow  of  a  man  seemed 
something  far  off  and  alien,  she  remembered 
that  even  with  that  she  had  brought  him  to 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         195 

his  evil  plight.  And  she  knew,  without 
formulating  it,  that  she  was  better  with  him 
than  without  him ;  she  said  to  herself  that, 
of  two  old  trees  grown  side  by  side,  if  one 
be  taken  away,  presently  the  other  fails  and 
falls. 

One  day  the  meagre  interest  money  did 
not  come.  Judith  had  been  defrauded  by 
the  agent.  She  had  to  draw  from  the  sum 
in  the  savings  bank.  As  long  as  that  sum 
eked  itself  out  she  paid  her  tax.  But  there 
came  a  time  when  no  tax  had  been  paid  for 
so  long,  that  the  officials  visited  the  place. 
They  saw  a  brown  and  withered  woman  at 
the  chopping-log,  an  ashen,  wizened  man  in 
the  doorway,  playing  weakly  a  droning  fid- 
dle to  no  tune  other  than  that  the  frogs 
piped  in  the  marshes  of  the  brook  below. 
And  at  the  end  of  a  few  questions  they  went 
away  and  let  the  taxes  go.  When  —  after 
her  long  absences  grown  indifferent  to  the 
public  eye  —  Judith  went  down  into  the 
town  with  some  baskets  she  had  woven 
from  osiers,  hoping  to  sell  them,  she  lost 
her  way  among  new  thoroughfares,  new 


196         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

buildings,  new  faces ;  the  old  town  was 
gone. 

But  she  did  not  realize  that  with  the  old 
town  was  gone  also  the  full  knowledge  of 
her  misdeed,  that  she  herself  had  become 
little  more  than  a  tradition. 

The  living  was  scanty  now  —  sometimes 
the  broth  of  one  of  the  chickens  of  their 
dwarfed  breed  or  of  some  little  wild  creature 
taken  in  a  snare,  the  garden-crop  that  Judith 
raised,  the  bread  and  porridge  she  made 
herself  of  grain  beaten  in  a  mortar  or 
ground  between  two  stones.  All  the  money 
they  had  was  that  which  the  factor  paid 
them  for  the  grass,  cheating  them  in  price 
and  measure.  Life  was  simplified  to  the 
mere  fact  of  keeping  alive.  Lean  and  hag- 
gard, wrecks  of  themselves,  they  looked  at 
each  other  merely  with  the  eyes  of  usage. 
There  were  periods  in  which  Ellis  did  not 
speak  a  word ;  possibly  there  were  no 
thoughts  in  his  mind ;  possibly  the  thoughts 
were  too  cruel  for  words.  One  day  he  sud- 
denly transfixed  her  with  a  glance  in  the 
pale  eye  that  had  lost  its  old  shadow  of  long 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         197 

black  lashes,  a  glance  that  might  have  been 
struck  from  blue  steel.  "  Do  you  know," 
he  said  sternly,  "where  Judith  Daun- 
try  is  ?  " 

She  ran  to  him  and  threw  her  arms  about 
him.  Old,  bleary,  unlovely,  the  soul  for 
love  of  which  she  had  made  the  world  dust 
in  the  balance  was  still  hidden  there. 
"Here  I  am!  Here  I  am!  Oh,  Ellis, 
don't  you  know  me  ? "  she  cried. 

He  loosened  her  hands.  "You  are  tak- 
ing a  liberty,"  was  what  his  manner  said. 
But  he  made  no  sound. 

At  other  times  he  knew  who  she  was  per- 
fectly well,  and  submitted  with  a  gentle 
patience  to  the  ministrations  that  kept  him 
scrupulously  clean.  Occasionally  he  walked 
out  with  her  to  the  brook,  leaning  on  his 
stick  and  on  her  arm  with  the  old  confi- 
dence. Sitting  beside  the  lucid  brown  and 
white  depths  and  sparkles,  the  murmur  of 
the  rippling  flow  would  lull  him  into  a  half 
sleep  of  which  the  dreams  may  have  been 
apparitions  from  the  days  of  his  youth. 
For  he  would  start  and  say  to  her,  "  Was  it 


198         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

well  done,  Judith  ?  Are  you  sorry  now  ?  " 
And  she  would  press  the  thin  and  freckled 
hand  to  her  sunken  lips,  and  think  how 
great  and  splendid  were  the  fires  of  their 
youth  to  be  such  ashes  now ! 

The  flowing  of  the  brook  always  so 
quieted  the  restlessness  of  Ellis  that  they 
had  long  been  wont  to  stumble  along  to- 
gether and  rest  there  in  pleasant  weather, 
saying  nothing,  thinking  nothing,  lost  in 
some  inane  dream.  If  Judith  went  over 
again  and  again  the  days  that  were  no 
more,  she  gave  no  sign.  If  she  spoke  it 
was  about  the  yarn  she  knit,  the  habits  of 
the  speckled  hen,  the  rheumatism  that  bent 
and  gnarled  them  both.  She  had  ceased  to 
think  of  herself  as  an  abandoned  woman  ;  so 
far  as  she  thought  of  it  at  all  she  had  a  dim 
sense  of  being  virtuous. 

They  had  been  sitting  there  in  silence  a 
long  time  one  afternoon,  when  he  suddenly 
looked  up  startled  and  bewildered.  "  Some 
one  said  —  who  was  it  ?  "  he  exclaimed  — 
"  some  one  just  told  me  that  Ellis  GoflF  was 
dead. —  Poor  fellow,"  he  said,  a  few  moments 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         199 

afterward.  It  was  like  a  great  flash  of  reve- 
lation to  Judith. 

Ellis  Goff  was  dead  indeed  not  many  days 
later.  He  stole  away  one  morning  as  Judith 
was  occupied  inside  the  house,  and  hobbled 
along  to  the  brook,  and  followed  its  wind- 
ing up  and  up  into  the  pass  of  the  hills,  and 
then  stooped  and  drank  from  the  palm  of 
his  old  hand  the  drops  that  dashed  into  it. 
She  found  him  half  his  length  across  the 
Stone  of  Sacrifice,  half  in  the  pool  where  he 
had  bent  to  see  the  pebbles  turned  into  live 
jewels  again  or  had  fallen  face  downward  in 
the  water.  But  there  were  no  jewels  flash- 
ing splendor  from  the  clear  depth  when  Ju- 
dith found  him.  It  was  dark  night.  Only 
one  star  glinting  there  showed  there  was 
a  heaven  above. 

When  the  old  doctor  came  up,  as  he 
occasionally  did,  and  led  by  some  indistinct 
sound  followed  along  the  brook  the  next 
morning,  he  saw  Judith  sitting  there,  staring 
into  Ellis's  dead  face  as  his  head  lay  on  her 
knee,  now  singing  as  a  mother  sings  to  her 
child,  now  cooing  like  a  dove,  now  scream- 


200         THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

ing  like  an  eagle.  Old,  comfortless,  Judith 
Dauntry  had  gone  mad. 

They  carried  her  away  to  the  almshouse ; 
and  the  town  took  the  place  for  the  taxes. 
And  in  time  the  glancing,  dancing  brook 
was  set  to  turning  wheels.  But  they  never 
could  keep  the  old  woman  long  away  —  she 
tramping  mile  after  mile  to  find  it.  The 
children  knew  the  gaunt  figure  in  the  long 
cloak  and  hood  as  that  of  some  tragic  thing. 
To-day  the  savage  in  them  threw  stones  at 
her;  to-morrow  they  ran  after  her  to  hear 
the  low  voice  muttering,  "  Except  that  the 
Lord  had  shortened  those  days,  except  that 
the  Lord  had  shortened  those  days." 

One  night  the  merry  boys  made  a  bonfire 
of  the  old  house.  The  flames  wallowed  up 
the  sky,  and  the  brook  repeated  them  again 
to  heaven.  The  later  winter  weather  gave 
the  ruins  a  glitter  of  huge  icicles.  When 
Judith  toiled  up  the  way  at  last  and  came 
upon  the  charred  and  shining  heap  she  gave 
a  great  cry.  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death  !  " 
she  cried.  She  went  along  mechanically,  as 
though  she  would  see  if  the  brook  had  gone 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN         201 

with  the  dwelling.  And  presently  she  sat 
down  upon  the  ice,  bending  her  ear  like  one 
who  would  listen  more  plainly  to  the  music 
of  the  tinkle  underneath  the  icy  mail.  And 
there  she  fell  asleep  and  became  ice  herself. 
And  when  the  Poormaster  came  up,  swear- 
ing under  his  breath,  he  found  that  Judith 
Dauntry  had  taken  her  wages. 


Her  Story 


Her  Story 


WELLNIGH  the  worst  of  it  all  is 
the  mystery. 

If  it  were  true,  that  accounts  for  my  being 
here.  If  it  were  not  true,  then  the  best  thing 
they  could  do  with  me  was  to  bring  me  here. 
Then,  too,  if  it  were  true,  they  would  save 
themselves  by  hurrying  me  away ;  and  if  it 
were  not  true  —  You  see,  just  as  all  roads 
lead  to  Rome,  all  roads  led  me  to  this  Re- 
treat. If  it  were  true,  it  was  enough  to  craze 
me  ;  and  if  it  were  not  true,  I  was  already 
crazed.  And  there  it  is  !  I  can't  make  out, 
sometimes,  whether  I  am  really  beside  my- 
self or  not ;  for  it  seems  that  whether  I  was 
crazed  or  sane,  if  it  were  true,  they  would 
naturally  put  me  out  of  sight  and  hearing  — 
bury  me  alive,  as  they  have  done,  in  this  Re- 
treat. They  ?  Well,  no  —  he.  She  stayed 
205 


206  HER  STORY 

at  home,  I  hear.  If  she  had  come  with  us, 
doubtless  I  should  have  found  reason  enough 
to  say  to  the  physician  at  once  that  she  was 
the  mad  woman,  not  I  — r  she,  who,  for  the 
sake  of  her  own  brief  pleasure,  could  make 
a  whole  after-life  of  misery  for  three  of  us. 
She  —  Oh  no,  don't  rise,  don't  go.  I  am 
quite  myself,  I  am  perfectly  calm.  Mad! 
There  was  never  a  drop  of  crazy  blood  in 
the  Ridgleys  or  the  Bruces,  or  any  of  the 
generations  behind  them,  and  why  should  it 
suddenly  break  out  like  a  smothered  fire  in 
me  ?  That  is  one  of  the  things  that  puzzle 
me  —  why  should  it  come  to  light  all  at 
once  in  me  if  it  were  not  true  ? 

Now,  I  am  not  going  to  .be  incoherent. 
It  was  too  kind  in  you  to  be  at  such  trouble 
to  come  and  see  me  in  this  prison,  this  grave. 
I  will  not  cry  out  once :  I  will  just  tell  you 
the  story  of  it  all  exactly  as  it  was,  and  you 
shall  judge.  If  I  can,  that  is  —  oh,  if  I  can  ! 
For  sometimes,  when  I  think  of  it,  it  seems 
as  if  Heaven  itself  would  fail  to  take  my 
part  if  I  did  not  lift  my  own  voice.  And  I 
cry,  and  I  tear  my  hair  and  my  flesh,  till  I 


HER  STORY  207 

know  my  anguish  weighs  down  their  joy, 
and  the  little  scale  that  holds  that  joy  flies 
up  under  the  scorching  of  the  sun,  and  God 
sees  the  festering  thing  for  what  it  is  !  Ah, 
it  is  not  injured  reason  that  cries  out  in  that 
way  :  it  is  a  breaking  heart ! 

How  cool  your  hand  is,  how  pleasant 
your  face  is,  how  good  it  is  to  see  you ! 
Don't  be  afraid  of  me :  I  am  as  much  my- 
self, I  tell  you,  as  you  are.  What  an  ab- 
surdity !  Certainly  any  one  who  heard  me 
make  such  a  speech  would  think  I  was  in- 
sane and  without  benefit  of  clergy.  To  ask 
you  not  to  be  afraid  of  me  because  I  am 
myself.  Isn't  it  what  they  call  a  vicious 
circle  ?  And  then  to  cap  the  climax  by  add- 
ing that  I  am  as  much  myself  as  you  are 
myself!  But  no  matter  —  you  know  better. 
Did  you  say  it  was  ten  years  ?  Yes,  I  knew 
it  was  as  much  as  that  —  oh,  it  seems  a  hun- 
dred years  !  But  we  hardly  show  it :  your 
hair  is  still  the  same  as  when  we  were  at 
school ;  and  mine  —  Look  at  this  lock  — 
I  cannot  understand  why  it  is  only  sprinkled 
here  and  there :  it  ought  to  be  white  as  the 


208  HER  STORY 

driven  snow.  My  babies  are  almost  grown 
women,  Elizabeth.  How  could  he  do  with- 
out me  all  this  time  ?  Hush  now !  I  am 
not  going  to  be  disturbed  at  all ;  only  that 
color  of  your  hair  puts  me  so  in  mind  of 
his :  perhaps  there  was  just  one  trifle  more 
of  gold  in  his.  Do  you  remember  that  lock 
that  used  to  fall  over  his  forehead  and  which 
he  always  tossed  back  so  impatiently.  I  used 
to  think  that  the  golden  Apollo  of  Rhodes 
had  just  such  massive,  splendid  locks  of 
hair  as  that ;  but  I  never  told  him ;  I  never 
had  the  face  to  praise  him ;  she  had.  She 
could  exclaim  how  like  ivory  the  forehead 
was  —  that  great  wide  forehead  —  how  that 
keen  aquiline  was  to  be  found  in  the  portrait 
of  the  Spencer  of  two  hundred  years  ago. 
She  could  tell  of  the  proud  lip,  of  the  fire 
burning  in  the  hazel  eye.  She  knew  how, 
by  a  silent  flattery,  as  she  shrank  away  and 
looked  up  at  him,  to  admire  his  haughty 
stature,  and  make  him  feel  the  strength  and 
glory  of  his  manhood  and  the  delicacy  of 
her  womanhood. 

She  was  a  little  thing  —  a  little  thing,  but 


HER  STORY  209 

wondrous  fair.  Fair,  did  I  say  ?  No  :  she 
was  dark  as  an  Egyptian,  but  such  perfect 
features,  such  rich  and  splendid  color,  such 
great  soft  eyes  —  so  soft,  so  black  —  so 
superb  a  smile  ;  and  then  such  hair  !  When 
she  let  it  down,  the  backward  curling  ends 
lay  on  the  ground  and  she  stood  on  them, 
or  the  children  lifted  them  and  carried  them 
behind  her  as  pages  carry  a  queen's  train. 
If  I  had  my  two  hands  twisted  in  that  hair! 
Oh,  how  I  hate  that  hair !  It  would  make 
as  good  a  bowstring  as  ever  any  Carthaginian 
woman's  made. 

Ah,  that  is  atrocious !  I  am  sure  you 
think  so.  But  living  all  these  lonesome 
years  as  I  have  done  seems  to  double  back 
one's  sinfulness  upon  one's  self.  Because 
one  is  sane  it  does  not  follow  that  one  is  a 
saint.  And  when  I  think  of  my  innocent 
babies  playing  with  the  hair  that  once  I  saw 
him  lift  and  pass  across  his  lips  !  But  I  will 
not  think  of  it ! 

Well,  well !  I  was  a  pleasant  thing  to 
look  at  myself  once  on  a  time,  you  know, 
Elizabeth.  He  used  to  tell  me  so :  those 


210  HER  STORY 

were  his  very  words.  I  was  tall  and  slender, 
and  if  my  skin  was  pale  it  was  clear  with  a 
pearly  clearness,  and  the  lashes  of  my  gray 
eyes  were  black  as  shadows  ;  but  now  those 
eyes  are  only  the  color  of  tears. 

I  never  told  a  syllable  about  it  —  I  never 
could.  It  was  so  deep  down  in  my  heart, 
that  love  I  had  for  him  :  it  slept  there  so 
dark  and  still  and  full,  for  he  was  all  I 
had  in  the  world.  I  was  alone,  an  orphan 
—  if  not  friendless,  yet  quite  dependent.  I 
see  you  remember  it  all.  I  did  not  even  sit 
in  the  pew  with  my  cousin's  family, —  there 
were  so  many  to  fill  it, —  but  down  in  one 
beneath  the  gallery,  you  know.  And  al- 
together life  was  a  thing  to  me  that  hardly 
seemed  worth  the  living.  I  went  to  church 
one  Sunday,  I  recollect,  idly  and  dreamingly 
as  usual.  I  did  not  look  off  my  book  till  a 
voice  filled  my  ear  —  a  strange  new  voice, 
a  deep  sweet  voice,  that  invited  you  and 
yet  commanded  you  —  a  voice  whose  sound 
divided  the  core  of  my  heart,  and  sent  thrills 
that  were  half  joy,  half  pain,  coursing  through 
me.  And  then  I  looked  up  and  saw  him  at 


HER  STORY  211 

the  desk.  He  was  reading  the  first  lesson : 
"  Fear  not,  for  I  have  redeemed  thee,  I  have 
called  thee  by  thy  name:  thou  art  mine." 
And  I  saw  the  bright  hair,  the  bright  up- 
turned face,  the  white  surplice,  and  I  said  to 
myself,  It  is  a  vision,  it  is  an  angel;  and  I 
cast  down  my  eyes.  But  the  voice  went  on, 
and  when  I  looked  again  he  was  still  there. 
Then  I  bethought  me  that  it  must  be  the 
one  who  was  coming  to  take  the  place  of 
our  superannuated  rector  —  the  last  of  a  fine 
line,  they  had  been  saying  the  day  before, 
who,  instead  of  finding  his  pleasure  other- 
wise, had  taken  all  his  wealth  and  prestige 
into  the  Church. 

Why  will  a  trifle  melt  you  so  —  a  strain 
of  music,  a  color  in  the  sky,  a  perfume? 
Have  you  never  leaned  from  the  window 
at  evening,  and  had  the  scent  of  a  flower 
float  by  and  fill  you  with  as  keen  a  sorrow 
as  if  it  had  been  disaster  touching  you? 
Long  ago,  I  mean  —  we  never  lean  from 
any  windows  here.  I  don't  know  how,  but 
it  was  in  that  same  invisible  way  that  this 
voice  melted  me ;  and  when  I  heard  it  say- 


212  HER  STORY 

ing,  "  Behold,  I  will  do  a  new  thing ;  now 
it  shall  spring  forth ;  shall  ye  not  know  it  ? 
I  will  even  make  a  way  in  the  wilderness, 
and  rivers  in  the  desert,"  I  was  fairly  crying. 
Oh,  nervous  tears,  I  dare  say.  The  doctor 
here  would  tell  you  so,  at  any  rate.  And 
that  is  what  I  complain  of  here :  they  give 
a  physiological  reason  for  every  emotion  — 
they  could  give  you  a  chemical  formula  for 
your  very  soul,  I  have  no  doubt.  Well, 
perhaps  they  were  nervous  tears,  for  certainly 
there  was  nothing  to  cry  for,  and  the  mood 
went  as  suddenly  as  it  came  —  changed  to  a 
sort  of  exaltation,  I  suppose  —  and  when 
they  sang  the  psalm,  and  he  had  swept  in, 
in  his  black  gown,  and  had  mounted  the 
pulpit  stairs,  and  was  resting  that  fair  head 
on  the  big  Bible  in  his  silent  prayer,  I  too 
was  singing  —  singing  like  one  possessed  : 

"  Then,  to  thy  courts  when  I  repair, 
My  soul  shall  rise  on  joyful  wing, 
The  wonders  of  thy  love  declare, 

And  join  the  strain  which  angels  sing." 

And  as  he  rose  I  saw  him  searching  for  the 


HER  STORY  213 

voice  unconsciously,  and  our  eyes  met. 
Oh,  it  was  a  fresh  young  voice,  let  it  be 
mine  or  whose.  I  can  hear  it  now  as  if  it 
were  someone  else  singing.  Ah,  ah,  it  has 
been  silent  so  many  years  !  Does  it  make 
you  smile  to  hear  me  pity  myself?  It  is 
not  myself  I  am  pitying:  it  is  that  fresh 
young  girl  that  loved  so.  But  it  used  to 
rejoice  me  to  think  that  I  loved  him  before 
I  laid  eyes  on  him. 

He  came  to  my  cousin's  in  the  week  — 
not  to  see  Sylvia  or  to  see  Laura :  he  talked 
of  church-music  with  my  cousin,  and  then 
crossed  the  room  and  sat  down  by  me.  I 
remember  how  I  grew  cold  and  trembled  — 
how  glad,  how  shy  I  was ;  and  then  he  had 
me  sing ;  and  at  first  Sylvia  sang  with  us, 
but  by  and  by  we  sang  alone  —  I  sang  alone. 
He  brought  me  yellow  old  church  music, 
written  in  quaint  characters :  he  said  those 
characters,  those  old  square  breves,  were  a 
text  guarding  secrets  of  enchantment  as 
much  as  the  text  of  Merlin's  book  did ;  and 
so  we  used  to  find  it.  Once  he  brought  a 
copy  of  an  old  Roman  hymn,  written  only 


2i4  HER  STORY 

in  the  Roman  letters  :  he  said  it  was  a  hymn 
which  the  ancients  sang  to  Maia,  the  mother- 
earth,  and  which  the  Church  fathers  adopted, 
singing  it  stealthily  in  the  hidden  places  of 
the  Catacombs ;  and  together  we  translated 
it  into  tones.  A  rude  but  majestic  thing  it 
was. 

And  once —  The  sunshine  was  falling 
all  about  us  in  the  bright  lonely  room, 
and  the  shadows  of  the  rose  leaves  at 
the  window  were  dancing  over  us.  I  had 
been  singing  a  Gloria  while  he  walked  up 
and  down  the  room,  and  he  came  up  behind 
me :  he  stooped  and  kissed  me  on  the 
mouth.  And  after  that  there  was  no  more 
singing,  for,  lovely  as  the  singing  was,  the 
love  was  lovelier  yet.  Why  do  I  complain 
of  such  a  hell  as  this  is  now?  I  had  my 
heaven  once  —  oh,  I  had  my  heaven  once ! 
And  as  for  the  other,  perhaps  I  deserve  it 
all,  for  I  saw  God  only  through  him  :  it  was 
he  that  waked  me  to  worship.  I  had  no 
faith  but  Spencer's  faith ;  if  he  had  been 
a  heathen,  I  should  have  been  the  same,  and 
creeds  and  systems  might  have  perished  for 


HER  STORY  215 

me  had  he  only  been  spared  from  the 
wreck.  And  he  had  loved  me  from  the  first 
moment  that  his  eyes  met  mine.  "  When  I 
looked  at  you,"  he  said,  "  singing  that  sim- 
ple hymn  that  first  day,  I  felt  as  I  do  when 
I  look  at  the  evening  star  leaning  out  of  the 
clear  sunset  lustre :  there  is  something  in 
your  face  as  pure,  as  remote,  as  shining.  It 
will  always  be  there,"  he  said,  "  though  you 
should  live  a  hundred  years."  He  little 
knew,  he  little  knew ! 

But  he  loved  me  then  —  oh  yes,  I  never 
doubted  that.  There  were  no  happier 
lovers  trod  the  earth.  We  took  our  pleas- 
ure as  lovers  do :  we  walked  in  the  fields ; 
we  sat  on  the  river's  side ;  together  we 
visited  the  poor  and  sick ;  he  read  me  the 
passages  he  liked  best  in  his  writing  from 
week  to  week ;  he  brought  me  the  verse 
from  which  he  meant  to  preach,  and  up  in 
the  organ-loft  I  improvised  to  him  the 
thoughts  that  it  inspired  in  me.  I  did  that 
timidly  indeed :  I  could  not  think  my 
thoughts  were  worth  his  hearing  till  I  forgot 
myself,  and  only  thought  of  him  and  the 


2i6  HER  STORY 

glory  I  would  have  revealed  to  him,  and 
then  the  great  clustering  chords  and  the  full 
music  of  the  diapason  swept  out  beneath  my 
hands  —  swept  along  the  aisles  and  swelled 
up  the  raftered  roof  as  if  they  would  find 
the  stars,  and  sunset  and  twilight  stole 
around  us  there  as  we  sat  still  in  the  suc- 
ceeding silence.  I  was  happy  :  I  was  hum- 
ble too.  I  wondered  why  I  had  been 
chosen  for  such  a  blest  and  sacred  lot.  It 
was  so  blessed  to  be  allowed  to  minister 
one  delight  to  him.  I  had  a  little  print 
of  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appearing  to 
Mary  with  the  lily  of  annunciation  in  his 
hand,  and  I  thought —  I  dare  not  tell  you 
what  I  thought.  I  made  an  idol  of  my 
piece  of  clay. 

When  the  leaves  had  turned  we  were 
married,  and  he  took  me  home.  Ah,  what 
a  happy  home  it  was  !  Luxury  and  beauty 
filled  it.  When  I  first  went  into  it  and  left 
the  chill  October  night  without,  fires  blazed 
upon  the  hearths ;  flowers  bloomed  in  every 
room ;  a  marble  Eros  held  a  light  up, 
searching  for  his  Psyche.  "  Our  love  has 


HER  STORY  217 

found  its  soul,"  said  he.  He  led  me  to  the 
music-room  —  a  temple  in  itself,  for  its 
rounded  ceiling  towered  to  the  height  of 
the  house.  There  were  golden  organ-pipes 
and  banks  of  keys  fit  for  St.  Cecilia's  use ; 
there  were  all  the  delightful  outlines  of 
violin  and  piccolo  and  harp  and  horn  for 
any  who  would  use  them ;  there  was  a 
pianoforte  near  the  door  for  me  —  one  such 
as  I  had  never  touched  before ;  and  there 
were  cases  on  all  sides  filled  with  the  rarest 
musical  works.  The  floor  was  bare  and  in- 
laid ;  the  windows  were  latticed  in  stained 
glass,  so  that  no  common  light  of  day  ever 
filtered  through,  but  light  bluer  than  the 
sky,  gold  as  the  dawn,  purple  as  the  night ; 
and  then  there  were  vast  embowering  chairs, 
in  any  of  which  he  could  hide  himself  away 
while  I  made  my  incantation,  as  he  some- 
times called  it,  of  the  great  spirits  of  song. 
As  I  tried  the  piano  that  night  he  tuned  the 
old  Amati  which  he  himself  now  and  then 
played  upon,  and  together  we  improvised 
our  own  epithalamium.  It  was  the  violin 
that  took  the  strong  assuring  part  with 


2i8  HER  STORY 

strains  of  piercing  sweetness,  and  the  music 
of  the  piano  flowed  along  in  a  soft  cantabile 
of  undersong.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  his 
part  was  like  the  flight  of  some  white  and 
strong-winged  bird  above  a  sunny  brook. 

But  he  had  hardly  created  this  place  for 
the  love  of  me  alone.  He  adored  music  as 
a  regenerator ;  he  meant  to  use  it  so  among 
his  people :  here  were  to  be  pursued  those 
labors  which  should  work  miracles  when 
produced  in  the  open  church.  For  he  was 
building  a  church  with  the  half  of  his  fort- 
une —  a  church  full  of  restoration  of  the  old 
and  creation  of  the  new :  the  walls  within 
were  to  be  a  frosty  tracery  of  vines  running 
to  break  into  the  gigantic  passion-flower 
that  formed  the  rose-window ;  the  lectern  a 
golden  globe  upon  a  tripod,  clasped  by  a 
silver  dove  holding  on  outstretched  wings 
the  book. 

I  have  feared,  since  I  have  been  here, 
that  Spencer's  piety  was  less  piety  than 
partisanship :  I  have  doubted  if  faith  were 
so  much  alive  in  him  as  the  love  of  a  great 
perfect  system,  and  the  pride  in  it  I  know 


HER  STORY  219 

he  always  felt.  But  I  never  thought  about 
it  then:  I  believed  in  him  as  I  would  have 
believed  in  an  apostle.  So  stone  by  stone 
the  church  went  up,  and  stone  by  stone  our 
lives  followed  it  —  lives  of  such  peace,  such 
bliss !  Then  fresh  hopes  came  into  it  — 
sweet  trembling  hopes ;  and  by  and  by  our 
first  child  was  born.  And  if  I  had  been 
happy  before,  what  was  I  then  ?  There  are 
some  compensations  in  this  world :  such 
happiness  could  not  come  twice,  such  happi- 
ness as  there  was  in  that  moment  when  1 
lay,  painless  and  at  peace,  with  the  little 
cheek  nestled  beside  my  own,  while  he  bent 
above  us  both,  proud  and  glad  and  tender. 
It  was  a  dear  little  baby  —  so  fair,  so  bright ! 
and  when  she  could  walk  she  could  sing. 
Her  sister  sang  earlier  yet ;  and  what  music 
their  two  shrill  sweet  voices  made  as  they 
sat  in  their  little  chairs  together  at  twilight 
before  the  fire,  their  curls  glistening  and 
their  red  shoes  glistening,  while  they  sang 
the  evening  hymn,  Spencer  on  one  side  of 
the  hearth  and  I  upon  the  other !  Some- 
times we  let  the  dear  things  sit  up  for  a  later 


220  HER  STORY 

hour  in  the  music-room  —  for  many  a  canti- 
cle we  tried  and  practised  there  that  hushed 
hearts  and  awed  them  when  the  choir  gave 
them  on  succeeding  Sundays  —  and  always 
afterward  I  heard  them  singing  in  their 
sleep,  just  as  a  bird  stirs  in  his  nest  and  sings 
his  stave  in  the  night.  Oh,  we  were  happy 
then  ;  and  it  was  then  she  came. 

She  was  the  step-child  of  his  uncle,  and 
had  a  small  fortune  of  her  own,  and  Spencer 
had  been  left  her  guardian;  and  so  she  was 
to  live  with  us  —  at  any  rate,  for  a  while. 
I  dreaded  her  coming.  I  did  not  want  the 
intrusion ;  I  did  not  like  the  things  I  heard 
about  her ;  I  knew  she  would  be  a  discord  in 
our  harmony.  But  Spencer,  who  had  only 
seen  her  once  in  her  childhood,  had  been 
told  by  some  one  who  travelled  in  Europe 
with  her  that  she  was  delightful  and  had  a 
rare  intelligence.  She  was  one  of  those 
women  often  delightful  to  men  indeed,  but 
whom  other  women  —  by  virtue  of  their 
own  kindred  instincts,  it  may  be,  perhaps 
by  virtue  of  temptations  overcome  —  see 
through  and  know  for  what  they  are.  But 


HER  STORY  221 

she  had  her  own  way  of  charming :  she  was 
the  being  of  infinite  variety  —  to-day  glad, 
to-morrow  sad,  freakish,  and  always  exciting 
you  by  curiosity  as  to  her  next  caprice,  and 
so  moody  that  after  a  season  of  the  lowering 
weather  of  one  of  her  dull  humors  you  were 
ready  to  sacrifice  something  for  the  sake  of 
the  sunshine  that  she  knew  how  to  make  so 
vivid  and  so  sweet.  Then,  too,  she  brought 
forward  her  forces  by  detachment.  At  first 
she  was  the  soul  of  domestic  life,  sitting  at 
night  beneath  the  light  and  embossing  on 
weblike  muslin  designs  of  flower  and  leaf 
which  she  had  learned  in  her  convent,  lis- 
tening to  Spencer  as  he  read,  and  taking 
from  the  little  wallet  of  her  work-basket 
apropos  scraps  which  she  had  preserved 
from  the  sermon  of  some  Italian  father  of 
the  Church  or  of  some  French  divine.  As 
for  me,  the  only  thing  I  knew  was  my  poor 
music  ;  and  I  used  to  burn  with  indignation 
when  she  interposed  that  unknown  tongue 
between  my  husband  and  myself.  Pres- 
ently her  horses  came,  and  then,  graceful  in 
her  dark  riding-habit,  she  would  spend  a 


222  HER  STORY 

morning  fearlessly  subduing  one  of  the 
fiery  fellows,  and  dash  away  at  last  with 
plume  and  veil  streaming  behind  her.  In 
the  early  evening  she  would  dance  with  the 
children  —  witch-dances  they  were  —  with 
her  round  arms  linked  above  her  head,  and 
her  feet  weaving  the  measure  in  and  out  as 
deftly  as  any  flashing- footed  Bayadere  might 
do  —  only  when  Spencer  was  there  to  see : 
at  other  times  I  saw  she  pushed  the  little 
hindering  things  aside  without  a  glance. 

By  and  by  she  began  to  display  a  strange 
dramatic  sort  of  power :  she  would  rehearse 
to  Spencer  scenes  that  she  had  met  with 
from  day  to  day  in  the  place,  giving  now 
the  old  churchwarden's  voice  and  now  the 
sexton's,  their  gestures  and  very  faces ;  she 
could  tell  the  ailments  of  half  the  old 
women  in  the  parish  who  came  to  me  with 
them,  and  in  their  own  tone  and  manner 
to  the  life ;  she  told  us  once  of  a  street- 
scene,  with  the  crier  crying  a  lost  child,  the 
mother  following  with  lamentations,  the 
passing  strangers  questioning,  the  boys 
hooting,  and  the  child's  reappearance,  fol- 


HER  STORY  223 

lowed  by  a  tumult,  with  kisses  and  blows 
and  cries,  so  that  I  thought  I  saw  it  all ; 
and  presently  she  had  found  the  secret  and 
vulnerable  spot  of  every  friend  we  had,  and 
could  personate  them  all  as  vividly  as  if  she 
did  it  by  necromancy. 

One  night  she  began  to  sketch  our  por- 
traits in  charcoal :  the  likenesses  were  not 
perfect;  she  exaggerated  the  careless  ele- 
gance of  Spencer's  attitude ;  perhaps  the 
primness  of  my  own.  But  yet  he  saw  there 
the  ungraceful  trait  for  the  first  time,  I 
think.  And  so  much  led  to  more :  she 
brought  out  her  portfolios,  and  there  were 
her  pencil-sketches  from  the  Rhine  and 
from  the  Guadalquivir,  rich  water-colors  of 
Venetian  scenes,  interiors  of  old  churches, 
and  sheet  after  sheet  covered  with  details  of 
church  architecture.  Spencer  had  been  ad- 
miring all  the  others  —  in  spite  of  some- 
thing that  I  thought  I  saw  in  them,  a  some- 
thing that  was  not  true,  a  trait  of  her  own 
identity,  for  I  had  come  to  criticise  her 
sharply  —  but  when  his  eye  rested  on  those 
sheets  I  saw  it  sparkle,  and  he  caught  them 
up  and  pored  over  them  one  by  one. 


224  HER  STORY 

"  I  see  you  have  mastered  the  whole 
thing,"  he  said :  "  you  must  instruct  me 
here."  And  so  she  did.  And  there  were 
hours,  while  I  was  busied  with  servants  and 
accounts  or  with  the  children,  when  she  was 
closeted  with  Spencer  in  the  study,  criticis- 
ing, comparing,  making  drawings,  hunting 
up  authorities ;  other  hours  when  they 
walked  away  together  to  the  site  of  the 
new  church  that  was  building,  and  here  an 
arch  was  destroyed,  and  there  an  aisle  was 
extended,  and  here  a  row  of  cloisters 
sketched  into  the  plan,  and  there  a  row 
of  windows,  till  the  whole  design  was  re- 
versed and  made  over.  And  they  had  the 
thing  between  them,  for,  admire  and  sympa- 
thize as  I  might,  I  did  not  know.  At  first 
Spencer  would  repeat  the  day's  achievement 
to  me,  but  the  contempt  for  my  ignorance 
which  she  did  not  deign  to  hide  soon  put  an 
end  to  it  when  she  was  present. 

It  was  this  interest  that  now  unveiled  a 
new  phase  of  her  character  :  she  was  devout. 
She  had  a  little  altar  in  her  room ;  she  knew 
all  about  albs  and  chasubles ;  she  would 


HER  STORY  225 

have  persuaded  Spencer  to  burn  candles  in 
the  chancel ;  she  talked  of  a  hundred  mys- 
teries and  symbols  ;  she  wanted  to  embroider 
a  stole  to  lay  across  his  shoulders.  She 
was  full  of  small  church  sentimentalities, 
and  as  one  after  another  she  uttered  them, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  her  belief  was  no 
sound  fruit  of  any  system  —  if  it"  were  belief, 
and  not  a  mere  bunch  of  fancies  —  but  only, 
as  you  might  say,  a  rotten  windfall  of  the 
Romish  Church  :  it  had  none  of  the  round 
splendor  of  that  Church's  creed,  none  of  the 
pure  simplicity  of  ours :  it  would  be  no  stay 
in  trouble,  no  shield  in  temptation.  I  said 
as  much  to  Spencer. 

"  You  are  prejudiced,"  said  he  :  "  her  be- 
lief is  the  result  of  long  observation  abroad, 
I  think.  She  has  found  the  need  of  out- 
ward observances :  they  are,  she  has  told 
me,  a  shrine  to  the  body  of  her  faith,  like 
that  commanded  in  the  building  of  the 
tabernacle,  where  the  ark  of  the  covenant 
was  enclosed  in  the  holy  of  holies." 

"  And  you  didn't  think  it  profane  in  her 
to  speak  so  ?  But  I  don't  believe  it,  Spen- 


226  HER  STORY 

cer,"  I  said.  "  She  has  no  faith :  she  has 
some  sentimentalisms." 

"You  are  prejudiced,"  he  repeated. 
"  She  seems  to  me  a  wonderful  and  gifted 
being." 

"  Too  gifted,"  I  said.  "  Her  very  gifts 
are  unnatural  in  their  abundance.  There 
must  be  scrofula  there  to  keep  such  a  fire  in 
the  blood  and  sting  the  brain  to  such  ac- 
tion :  she  will  die  in  a  madhouse,  depend 
upon  it."  Think  of  my  saying  such  a  thing 
as  that ! 

"  I  have  never  heard  you  speak  so  be- 
fore," he  replied  coldly.  "  I  hope  you  do 
not  envy  her  her  powers." 

"  I  envy  her  nothing,"  I  cried.  "  For  she 
is  as  false  as  she  is  beautiful!  "  But  I  did  — 
oh  I  did ! 

"Beautiful?"  said  Spencer.  "  Is  she 
beautiful  ?  I  never  thought  of  that." 

"  You  are  very  blind,  then,"  I  said  with 
a  glad  smile. 

Spencer  smiled  too.  "  It  is  not  the  kind 
of  beauty  I  admire,"  said  he. 

"  Then  I  must  teach  you,  sir,"  said  she. 


HER  STORY  227 

And  we  both  started  to  see  her  in  the  door- 
way, and  I,  for  one,  did  not  know,  till 
shortly  before  I  found  myself  here,  how 
much  or  how  little  she  had  learned  of  what 
we  said. 

"Then  I  must  teach  you,  sir,"  said  she 
again.  And  she  came  deliberately  into  the 
firelight  and  paused  upon  the  rug,  drew  out 
the  silver  arrows  and  shook  down  all  her 
hair  about  her,  till  the  great  snake-like  coils 
unrolled  upon  the  floor. 

"  Hyacinthine,"  said  Spencer. 

"Indeed  it  is,"  said  she.  "The  very 
color  of  the  jacinth,  with  that  red  tint  in 
its  darkness  that  they  call  black  in  the  shade 
and  gold  in  the  sun.  Now  look  at  me." 

"  Shut  your  eyes,  Spencer,"  I  cried,  and 
laughed. 

But  he  did  not  shut  his  eyes.  The  fire- 
light flashed  over  her:  the  color  in  her 
cheeks  and  on  her  lips  sprang  ripe  and  red 
in  it  as  she  held  the  hair  away  from  them 
with  her  rosy  finger-tips  ;  her  throat  curved 
small  and  cream-white  from  the  bosom  that 
the  lace  of  her  dinner-dress  scarcely  hid; 


228  HER  STORY 

and  the  dark  eyes  glowed  with  a  great  light 
as  they  lay  fall  on  his. 

"  You  mustn't  call  it  vanity,"  said  she. 
"  It  is  only  that  it  is  impossible,  looking  at 
the  picture  in  the  glass,  not  to  see  it  as  I  see 
any  other  picture.  But  for  all  that,  I  know 
it  is  not  every  fool's  beauty  :  it  is  no  daub 
for  the  vulgar  gaze,  but  a  masterpiece  that  it 
needs  the  educated  eye  to  find.  I  could  tell 
you  how  this  nostril  is  like  that  in  a  famous 
marble,  how  the  curve  of  this  cheek  is  that 
of  a  certain  Venus,  the  line  of  this  forehead 
like  the  line  in  the  dreamy  Antinous'  fore- 
head. Are  you  taught  ?  Is  it  —  ?  " 

Then  she  twisted  her  hair  again  and  fas- 
tened the  arrows,  and  laughed  and  turned 
away  to  look  over  the  evening  paper.  But 
as  for  Spencer,  as  he  lay  back  in  his  lordly 
way,  surveying  the  vision  from  crown  to 
toe,  I  saw  him  flush  —  I  saw  him  flush 
and  start  and  quiver,  and  then  he  closed  his 
eyes  and  pressed  his  fingers  on  them,  and 
lay  back  again  and  said  not  a  word. 

She  began  to  read  aloud  something  con- 
cerning services  at  the  recent  dedication  of 


HER  STORY  229 

a  church.  I  was  called  out  as  she  read. 
When  I  came  back,  a  half  hour  afterward, 
they  were  talking.  I  stopped  at  my  work- 
table  in  the  next  room  for  a  skein  of  floss 
that  she  had  asked  me  for,  and  I  heard  her 
saying,  "  You  cannot  expect  me  to  treat  you 
with  reverence.  You  are  a  married  priest, 
and  you  know  what  opinion  I  necessarily 
must  have  of  married  priests."  Then  I 
came  in  and  she  was  silent. 

But  I  knew,  I  always  knew,  that  if  Spencer 
had  not  felt  himself  weak,  had  not  found 
himself  stirred,  if  he  had  not  recognized  that, 
when  he  flushed  and  quivered  before  her 
charm,  it  was  the  flesh  and  not  the  spirit 
that  tempted  him,  he  would  not  have  lis- 
tened to  her  subtle  invitation  to  austerity. 
As  it  was,  he  did.  He  did  —  partly  in 
shame,  partly  in  punishment;  but  to  my 
mind  the  listening  was  confession.  She  had 
set  the  wedge  that  was  to  sever  our  union  — 
the  little  seed  in  a  mere  idle  cleft  that  grows 
and  grows  and  splits  the  rock  asunder. 

Well,  I  had  my  duties,  you  know.  I 
never  felt  my  husband's  wealth  a  reason  why 


23o  HER  STORY 

I  should  neglect  them  any  more  than  another 
wife  should  neglect  her  duties.  I  was  wanted 
in  the  parish,  sent  for  here  and  waited  for 
there:  the  dying  liked  to  see  me  comfort 
their  living,  the  living  liked  to  see  me  touch 
their  dead;  some  wanted  help,  and  others 
wanted  consolation  ;  and  where  I  felt  myself 
too  young  and  unlearned  to  give  advice,  I 
could  at  least  give  sympathy.  Perhaps  I 
was  the  more  called  upon  for  such  detail  of 
duty  because  Spencer  was  busy  with  the 
greater  things,  the  church-building  and  the 
sermons  —  sermons  that  once  on  a  time 
lifted  you  and  held  you  on  their  strong 
wings.  But  of  late  Spencer  had  been  preach- 
ing old  sermons.  He  had  been  moody  and 
morose  too  :  sometimes  he  seemed  oppressed 
with  melancholy.  He  had  spoken  to  me 
strangely,  had  looked  at  me  as  if  he  pitied 
me,  had  kept  away  from  me.  But  she  had 
not  regarded  his  moods:  she  had  followed 
him  in  his  solitary  strolls,  had  sought  him  in 
his  study ;  and  she  had  ever  a  mystery  or 
symbol  to  be  interpreted,  the  picture  of  a 
private  chapel  that  she  had  heard  of  when 


HER  STORY  231 

abroad,  or  the  ground-plan  of  an  ancient 
one,  or  some  new  temptation  to  his  ambition, 
as  I  divine.  And  soon  he  was  himself  again. 

I  was  wrong  to  leave  him  so  to  her,  but 
what  was  there  else  for  me  to  do  ?  And  as 
for  those  duties  of  mine,  as  I  followed  them 
I  grew  restive ;  I  abridged  them,  I  hastened 
home.  I  was  impatient  even  with  the  deten- 
tions the  children  caused.  I  could  not  leave 
them  to  their  nurses,  for  all  that ;  but  they 
kept  me  away  from  him,  and  he  was  alone 
with  her. 

One  day  at  last  he  told  me  that  his  mind 
was  troubled  by  the  suspicion  that  his  mar- 
riage was  a  mistake ;  that  on  his  part  at  least 
it  had  been  wrong ;  that  he  had  been  think- 
ing a  priest  should  have  the  Church  only  for 
his  bride,  and  should  wait  at  the  altar  mor- 
tified in  every  affection ;  that  it  was  not  for 
hands  that  were  full  of  caresses  and  lips  that 
were  covered  with  kisses  to  touch  the  sacra- 
ment, to  offer  praise.  But  for  answer  I 
brought  my  children  and  put  them  in  his 
arms.  I  was  white  and  cold  and  shaking, 
but  I  asked  him  if  they  were  not  justifica- 


232  HER  STORY 

tion  enough.  And  I  told  him  that  he  did 
his  duty  better  abroad  for  the  heartening 
of  a  wife  at  home,  and  that  he  knew  better 
how  to  interpret  God's  love  to  men  through 
his  own  love  for  his  children.  And  I  laid 
my  head  on  his  breast  beside  them,  and  he 
clasped  us  all  and  we  cried  together,  he 
and  I. 

But  that  was  not  enough,  I  found.  And 
when  our  good  bishop  came,  who  had  always 
been  like  a  father  to  Spencer,  I  led  the  con- 
versation to  that  point  one  evening,  and  he 
discovered  Spencer's  trouble,  and  took  him 
away  and  reasoned  with  him.  The  bishop 
was  a  power  with  Spencer,  and  I  think  that 
was  the  end  of  it. 

The  end  of  that,  but  only  the  beginning 
of  the  rest.  For  she  had  accustomed  him 
to  the  idea  of  separation  from  me  —  the  idea 
of  doing  without  me.  He  had  put  me  away 
from  himself  once  in  his  mind :  we  had  been 
one  soul,  and  now  we  were  two. 

One  day,  as  I  stood  in  my  sleeping-room 
with  the  door  ajar,  she  came  in.  She  had 
never  been  there  before,  and  I  cannot  tell 


HER  STORY  233 

you  how  insolently  she  looked  about  her. 
There  was  a  bunch  of  flowers  on  a  stand 
that  Spencer  himself  placed  there  for  me 
every  morning.  He  had  always  done  so, 
and  there  had  been  no  reason  for  breaking 
off  the  habit ;  and  I  had  always  worn  one  of 
them  at  my  throat.  She  advanced  a  hand  to 
pull  out  a  blossom.  "  Do  not  touch  them," 
I  cried :  "  my  husband  puts  them  there." 
"  Suppose  he  does,"  said  she  lightly. 
"  For  how  long?"  Then  she  overlooked 
me  with  a  long  sweeping  glance  of  search 
and  contempt,  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and 
with  a  French  sentence  that  I  did  not  under- 
stand turned  back  and  coolly  broke  off  the 
blossom  she  had  marked  and  hung  it  in  her 
hair.  I  could  not  take  her  by  the  shoulders 
and  put  her  from  the  room.  I  could  not 
touch  the  flowers  that  she  had  desecrated.  I 
left  the  room  myself,  and  left  her  in  it,  and 
went  down  to  dinner  for  the  first  time  with- 
out the  flower  at  my  throat.  I  saw  Spencer's 
eye  note  the  omission  :  perhaps  he  took  it 
as  a  release  from  me,  for  he  never  put  the 
flowers  in  my  room  again  after  that  day. 


234  HER  STORY 

Nor  did  he  ask  me  any  more  into  his 
study,  as  he  had  been  used,  or  read  his  ser- 
mons to  me.  There  was  no  need  of  his  talk- 
ing over  the  church-building  with  me  —  he 
had  her  to  talk  it  over  with.  And  as  for  our 
music,  that  had  been  a  rare  thing  since  she 
arrived,  for  her  conversation  had  been  such 
as  to  leave  but  little  time  for  it,  and  some- 
how when  she  came  into  the  music-room  and 
began  to  dictate  to  me  the  time  in  which  I 
should  take  an  Inflammatus  and  the  spirit  in 
which  I  should  sing  a  ballad,  I  could  not 
bear  it.  Then,  too,  to  tell  you  the  truth, 
my  voice  was  hoarse  and  choked  with  tears 
full  half  the  time. 

It  was  some  weeks  after  the  flowers  ceased 
that  our  youngest  child  fell  ill.  She  was 
very  ill  —  I  don't  think  Spencer  knew  how 
ill.  I  dared  not  trust  her  with  any  one,  and 
Spencer  said  no  one  could  take  such  care  of 
her  as  her  mother  could ;  so,  although  we 
had  nurses  in  plenty,  I  hardly  left  the  room 
by  night  or  day.  I  heard  their  voices  down 
below,  I  saw  them  go  out  for  their  walks. 
It  was  a  hard  fight,  but  I  saved  her. 


HER  STORY  235 

But  I  was  worn  to  a  shadow  when  all  was 
done  —  worn  with  anxiety  for  her,  with  al- 
ternate fevers  of  hope  and  fear,  with  the 
weight  of  my  responsibility  as  to  her  life ; 
and  with  anxiety  for  Spencer  too,  with  a 
despairing  sense  that  the  end  of  peace  had 
come,  and  with  the  total  sleeplessness  of 
many  nights.  Now,  when  the  child  was 
mending  and  gaining  every  day,  I  could  not 
sleep  if  I  would. 

The  doctor  gave  me  anodynes,  but  to  no 
purpose:  they  only  nerved  me  wide  awake. 
My  eyes  ached,  and  my  brain  ached,  and  my 
body  ached,  but  it  was  of  no  use :  I  could 
not  sleep.  I  counted  the  spots  on  the  wall, 
the  motes  upon  my  eyes,  the  notes  of  all  the 
sheets  of  music  I  could  recall.  I  remem- 
bered the  Eastern  punishment  of  keeping 
the  condemned  awake  till  they  die,  and  won- 
dered what  my  crime  was ;  I  thought  if  I 
could  but  sleep  I  might  forget  my  trouble, 
or  take  it  up  freshly  and  master  it.  But  no, 
it  was  always  there  —  a  heavy  cloud,  a  horror 
of  foreboding.  As  I  heard  that  woman's 
step  go  by  the  door  I  longed  to  rid  the 


236  HER  STORY 

house  of  it,  and  I  dinted  my  palms  with  my 
nails  till  she  had  passed. 

I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  was  wicked  in  letting  the  thing 
go  on,  in  suffering  Spencer  to  be  any  longer 
exposed  to  her  power ;  but  then  I  feared  to 
take  a  step  lest  I  should  thereby  rivet  the 
chains  she  was  casting  on  him.  And  then  I 
longed  so  for  one  hour  of  the  old  dear 
happiness  —  the  days  when  I  and  the  chil- 
dren had  been  all  and  enough.  I  did  not 
know  what  to  do ;  I  had  no  one  to  counsel 
with ;  I  was  wild  within  myself,  and  all  dis- 
traught. Once  I  thought  if  I  could  not  rid 
the  house  of  her  I  could  rid  it  of  myself; 
and  as  I  went  through  a  dark  passage  and 
chanced  to  look  up  where  a  bright-headed 
nail  glittered,  I  questioned  if  it  would  bear 
my  weight.  For  days  the  idea  haunted  me. 
I  fancied  that  when  I  was  gone  perhaps  he 
would  love  me  again,  and  at  any  rate  I  might 
be  asleep  and  at  rest.  But  the  thought  of 
the  children  prevented  me,  and  one  other 
thought  —  I  was  not  certain  that  even  my 
sorrows  would  excuse  me  before  God. 


HER  STORY  237 

I  went  down  to  dinner  again  at  last.  How 
she  glowed  and  abounded  in  her  beauty  as 
she  sat  there  !  And  I  —  I  must  have  been 
very  thin  and  ghastly :  perhaps  I  looked  a 
little  wild  in  all  my  bewilderment  and  hurt. 
His  heart  smote  him,  it  may  be,  for  he  came 
round  to  where  I  sat  by  the  fire  afterward 
and  smoothed  my  hair  and  kissed  my  fore- 
head. He  could  not  tell  all  I  was  suffering 
then  —  all  I  was  struggling  with ;  for  I 
thought  I  had  better  put  him  out  of  the 
world  than  let  him,  who  was  once  so  pure 
and  good,  stay  in  it  to  sin.  I  could  have 
done  it,  you  know.  For  though  I  still  lay 
with  the  little  girl,  I  could  have  stolen  back 
into  our  own  room  with  the  chloroform,  and 
he  would  never  have  known.  I  turned  the 
handle  of  the  door  one  night,  but  the  bolt 
was  slipped.  I  never  thought  of  killing  her, 
you  see :  let  her  live  and  sin,  if  she  would. 
She  was  the  thing  of  slime  and  sin,  a  splen- 
did tropical  growth  of  the  passionate  heat 
and  the  slime  :  it  was  only  her  nature.  But 
then  we  think  it  no  harm  to  kill  reptiles, 
however  splendid. 


238  HER  STORY 

But  it  was  by  that  time  that  the  voices 
had  begun  to  talk  with  me  —  all  night  long, 
all  day.  It  was  they,  I  found,  that  had  kept 
me  so  sleepless.  Go  where  I  might,  they 
were  ever  before  me.  If  I  went  to  the 
woods,  I  heard  them  in  the  whisper  of  every 
pine  tree.  If  I  went  down  to  the  seashore,  I 
heard  them  in  the  plash  of  every  wave.  I 
heard  them  in  the  wind,  in  the  singing  of 
my  ears,  in  the  children's  breath  as  I  hung 
above  them, —  for  I  had  decided  that  if  I  went 
out  of  the  world  I  would  take  the  children 
with  me.  If  I  sat  down  to  play,  the  things 
would  twist  the  chords  into  discords ;  if  I 
sat  down  to  read,  they  would  come  between 
me  and  the  page. 

Then  I  could  see  the  creatures :  they  had 
wings  like  bats.  I  did  not  dare  speak  of 
them,  although  I  fancied  she  suspected  me, 
for  once  she  said,  as  I  was  kissing  my  little 
girl,  "When  you  are  gone  to  a  madhouse, 
don't  think  they'll  have  many  such  kisses." 
Did  she  say  it  ?  or  did  I  think  she  said  it  ? 
I  did  not  answer  her,  I  did  not  look  up  :  I 
suppose  I  should  have  flown  at  her  throat  if 
I  had. 


HER  STORY  239 

I  took  the  children  out  with  me  on  my 
rambles  :  we  went  for  miles  ;  sometimes  I 
carried  one,  sometimes  the  other.  I  took 
such  long,  long  walks  to  escape  those  noi- 
some things :  they  would  never  leave  me 
till  I  was  quite  tired  out.  Now  and  then  I 
was  gone  the  whole  day ;  and  all  the  time 
that  I  was  gone  he  was  with  her,  I  knew, 
and  she  was  tricking  out  her  beauty  and 
practising  her  arts. 

I  went  to  a  little  festival  with  them,  for 
Spencer  insisted.  And  she  made  shadow- 
pictures  on  the  wall,  wonderful  things  with 
her  perfect  profile  and  her  perfect  arms 
and  her  subtle  curves  —  she  out  of  sight, 
the  shadow  only  seen.  Now  it  was  I  sis, 
I  remember,  and  now  it  was  the  head 
and  shoulders  and  trailing  hair  of  a  float- 
ing sea-nymph.  And  then  there  were  cha- 
rades in  which  she  played ;  and  I  can't  tell 
you  the  glorious  thing  she  looked  when 
she  came  on  as  Helen  of  Troy  with  all 
her  "  beauty  shadowed  in  white  veils,"  you 
know  —  that  brown  and  red  beauty  with  its 
smiles  and  radiance  under  the  wavering  of 


240  HER  STORY 

the  flower-wrought  veil.  I  sat  by  Spencer, 
and  I  felt  him  shiver.  He  was  fighting  and 
struggling  too  within  himself,  very  likely  ; 
only  he  knew  that  he  was  going  to  yield 
after  all  —  only  he  longed  to  yield  while  he 
feared.  But  as  for  me,  I  saw  one  of  those 
bat-like  things  perched  on  her  ear  as  she 
stood  before  us,  and  when  she  opened  her 
mouth  to  speak  I  saw  them  flying  in  and 
out.  And  I  said  to  Spencer,  "  She  is  tor- 
menting me.  I  cannot  stay  and  see  her  swal- 
lowing the  souls  of  men  in  this  way."  And 
I  would  have  gone,  but  he  held  me  down  fast 
in  my  seat.  But  if  I  was  crazy  then  —  as 
they  say  I  was,  I  suppose  —  it  was  only 
with  a  metaphor,  for  she  was  sucking  Spen- 
cer's soul  out  of  his  body. 

But  I  was  not  crazy.  I  should  admit 
I  might  have  been  if  I  alone  had  seen  those 
evil  spirits.  But  Spencer  saw  them  too. 
He  never  told  me  so,  but  —  there  are  subtle 
ways  —  I  knew  he  did ;  for  when  I  opened 
the  church  door  late,  as  I  often  did  at  that 
time  after  my  long  walks,  they  would  rush 
in  past  me  with  a  whizz,  and  as  I  sat  in  the 


HER  STORY  241 

pew  I  would  see  him  steadily  avoid  looking 
at  me ;  and  if  he  looked  by  any  chance,  he 
would  turn  so  pale  that  I  have  thought  he 
would  drop  where  he  stood  ;  and  he  would 
redden  afterward  as  though  one  had  struck 
him.  He  knew  then  what  I  endured  with 
them ;  but  I  was  not  the  one  to  speak  of 
it.  Don't  tell  me  that  his  color  changed 
and  he  shuddered  so  because  I  sat  there 
mumbling  and  nodding  to  myself.  It  was 
because  he  saw  those  things  mopping  and 
mowing  beside  me  and  whispering  in  my  ear. 
Oh  what  loathsomeness  the  obscene  creatures 
whispered  !  Foul  quips  and  evil  words  I 
had  never  heard  before,  ribald  songs  and 
oaths ;  and  I  would  clap  my  hands  over  my 
mouth  to  keep  from  crying  out  at  them. 
Creatures  of  the  imagination,  you  may  say. 
It  is  possible.  But  they  were  so  vivid  that 
they  seem  real  to  me  even  now.  I  burn 
and  tingle  as  I  recall  them.  And  how  could 
1  have  imagined  such  sounds,  such  shapes, 
of  things  I  had  never  heard  or  seen  or 
dreamed  ? 

And    Spencer    was   very  unhappy,   I    am 


242  HER  STORY 

sure.  I  was  the  mother  of  his  children,  and 
if  he  loved  me  no  more,  he  had  an  old  kind- 
ness for  me  still,  and  my  distress  distressed 
him.  But  for  all  that  the  glamour  was  on 
him,  and  he  could  not  give  up  that  woman 
and  her  beauty  and  her  charm.  Once  or 
twice  he  may  have  thought  about  sending 
her  away,  but  perhaps  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  do  it  —  perhaps  he  reflected  it  was 
too  late,  and  now  it  was  no  matter.  But 
every  day  she  stayed  he  was  the  more  like 
wax  in  her  hands.  Oh,  he  was  weaker  than 
water  that  is  poured  out.  He  was  abandon- 
ing himself,  and  forgetting  earth  and  heaven 
and  hell  itself,  before  a  passion  —  a  passion 
that  soon  would  cloy,  and  then  would  sting. 
It  was  the  spring  season :  I  had  been 
out  several  hours.  The  sunset  fell  while 
I  was  in  the  wood,  and  the  stars  came 
out ;  and  at  one  time  I  thought  I  would  lie 
down  there  on  last  year's  leaves  and  never 
get  up  again.  But  I  remembered  the  chil- 
dren, and  went  home  to  them.  They  were 
in  bed  and  asleep  when  I  took  off  my 
shoes  and  opened  the  door  of  their  room  — 


HER  STORY  243 

breathing  so  sweetly  and  evenly,  the  little 
yellow  heads  close  together  on  one  pillow, 
their  hands  tossed  about  the  coverlid,  their 
parted  lips,  their  rosy  cheeks.  I  knelt  to  feel 
the  warm  breath  on  my  own  cold  cheek,  and 
then  the  voices  began  whispering  again : 
"  If  only  they  never  waked !  they  never 
waked  !  " 

And  all  I  could  do  was  to  spring  to  my 
feet  and  run  from  the  room.  I  ran  shoeless 
down  the  great  staircase  and  through  the 
long  hall.  I  thought  I  would  go  to  Spencer 
and  tell  him  all  —  all  my  sorrows,  all  the 
suggestions  of  the  voices,  and  maybe  in  the 
endeavor  to  save  me  he  would  save  himself. 
And  I  ran  down  the  long  dimly-lighted 
drawing-room,  led  by  the  sound  I  heard,  to 
the  music-room,  whose  doors  were  open  just 
beyond.  It  was  lighted  only  by  the  pale 
glimmer  from  the  other  room  and  by  the 
moonlight  through  the  painted  panes.  And 
I  paused  to  listen  to  what  I  had  never  lis- 
tened to  there — the  sound  of  the  harp  and 
a  voice  with  it.  Of  course  they  had  not 
heard  me  coming,  and  I  hesitated  and 


244  HER  STORY 

looked,  and  then  I  glided  within  the  door 
and  stood  just  by  the  open  piano  there. 

She  sat  at  the  harp  singing  —  the  huge 
gilded  harp.  I  did  not  know  she  sang  —  she 
had  kept  that  for  her  last  reserve  —  but  she 
struck  the  harp  so  that  it  sang  itself,  like  some 
great  prisoned  soul,  and  her  voice  followed 
it  —  oh  so  rich  a  voice  !  My  own  was  white 
and  thin,  I  felt,  beside  it.  But  mine  had 
soared,  and  hers  still  clung  to  earth  —  a  con- 
tralto sweet  with  honeyed  sweetness  —  the 
sweetness  of  unstrained  honey  that  has  the 
earth-taste  and  the  heavy  blossom-dust  yet 
in  it  —  sweet,  though  it  grew  hoarse  and 
trembling  with  passion.  He  sat  in  one  of 
the  great  arm-chairs  just  before  her  :  he  was 
white  with  feeling,  with  rapture,  with  forget- 
fulness ;  his  eyes  shone  like  stars.  He 
moved  restlessly,  a  strange  smile  kindled 
all  his  face :  he  bent  toward  her,  and  the 
music  broke  off  in  the  middle  as  they  threw 
their  arms  around  each  other,  and  hung 
there  lip  to  lip  and  heart  to  heart.  And 
suddenly  I  crashed  down  both  my  hands  on 
the  keyboard  before  me,  and  stood  and 
glared  upon  them. 


HER  STORY  245 

And  I  never  knew  anything  more  till  I 
woke  up  here. 

And  that  is  the  whole  of  it.  That  is  the 
puzzle  of  it  —  was  it  a  horrid  nightmare,  an 
insane  vision,  or  was  it  true  ?  Was  it  true 
that  I  saw  Spencer,  my  white,  clean  lover, 
my  husband,  a  man  of  God,  the  father  of 
our  spotless  babies, —  was  it  true  that  I  saw 
him  so,  or  was  it  only  some  wild,  vile  con- 
juration of  disease  ?  Oh,  I  would  be  willing 
to  have  been  crazed  a  lifetime,  a  whole  life- 
time, only  to  wake  one  moment  before  I 
died  and  find  that  that  had  never  been  ! 

Well,  well,  well !  When  time  passed  and 
I  became  more  quiet,  I  told  the  doctor  here 
about  the  voices  —  I  never  told  him  of 
Spencer  or  of  her  —  and  he  bade  me  dis- 
miss care.  He  said  I  was  ill  —  excitement 
and  sleeplessness  had  surcharged  my  nerves 
with  that  strange  magnetic  fluid  that  has 
worked  so  much  mischief  in  the  world. 
There  was  no  organic  disease,  you  see ;  only 
when  my  nerves  were  rested  and  right,  my 
brain  would  be  right.  And  the  doctor  gave 
me  medicines  and  books  and  work,  and 


246  HER  STORY 

when  I  saw  the  bat-like  things  again  I  was 
to  go  instantly  to  him.  And  after  a  little 
while  I  was  not  sure  that  I  did  see  them. 
And  in  a  little  while  longer  they  had  ceased 
to  come  altogether.  And  I  have  had  no 
more  of  them.  I  was  on  my  parole  then  in 
the  parlor,  at  the  table,  in  the  grounds.  I 
felt  that  I  was  cured  of  whatever  had  ailed 
me :  I  could  escape  at  any  moment  that  I 
wished. 

And  it  came  Christmas  time.  A  terrible 
longing  for  home  overcame  me  —  for  my 
children.  I  thought  of  them  at  this  time 
when  I  had  been  used  to  take  such  pains 
for  their  pleasure.  I  thought  of  the  little 
empty  stockings,  the  sad  faces ;  I  fancied  I 
could  hear  them  crying  for  me.  I  forgot  all 
about  my  word  of  honor.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  I  should  die,  that  I  might  as  well  die,  if 
I  could  not  see  my  little  darlings,  and  hold 
them  on  my  knees,  and  sing  to  them  while 
the  chimes  were  ringing  in  the  Christmas 
Eve.  And  winter  was  here  Und  there  was  so 
much  to  do  for  them.  And  I  walked  down 
the  garden,  and  looked  out  at  the  gate,  and 


HER  STORY  247 

opened  it  and  went  through.  And  I  slept 
that  night  in  a  barn  —  so  free,  so  free  and 
glad  !  And  the  next  day  an  old  farmer  and 
his  sons,  who  thought  they  did  me  a 
service,  brought  me  back,  and  of  course  I 
shrieked  and  raved.  And  so  would  you. 

But  since  then  I  have  been  in  this  ward 
and  a  prisoner.  I  have  my  work,  my 
amusement.  I  send  such  little  things  as  I 
can  make  to  my  girls.  I  read.  Sometimes 
of  late  I  sing  in  the  Sunday  service.  The 
place  is  a  sightly  place ;  the  grounds,  when 
we  are  taken  out,  are  fine ;  the  halls  are  spa- 
cious and  pleasant. 

Pleasant  —  but  ah,  when  you  have  trodden 
them  ten  years  ! 

And  so,  you  see,  if  I  were  a  clod,  if  I  had 
no  memory,  no  desires,  if  I  had  never  been 
happy  before,  I  might  be  happy  now.  I  am 
confident  the  doctor  thinks  me  well.  But  he 
has  no  orders  to  let  me  go.  Sometimes  it  is 
so  wearisome.  And  it  might  be  worse  if 
lately  I  had  not -been  allowed  a  new  service. 
And  that  is  to  try  to  make  a  woman  smile 
who  came  here  a  year  ago.  She  is  a  little 


248  HER  STORY 

woman,  swarthy  as  a  Malay,  but  her  hair, 
that  grows  as  rapidly  as  a  fungus  grows  in  the 
night,  is  whiter  than  leprosy :  her  eyebrows 
are  so  long  and  white  that  they  veil  and 
blanch  her  dark  dim  eyes ;  and  she  has  no 
front  teeth.  A  stone  from  a  falling  spire 
struck  her  from  her  horse,  they  say.  The 
blow  battered  her  and  beat  out  reason  and 
beauty.  Her  mind  is  dead :  she  remem- 
bers nothing,  knows  nothing;  but  she  fol- 
lows me  about  like  a  dog :  she  seems  to 
want  to  do  something  for  me,  to  propitiate 
me.  All  she  ever  says  is  to  beg  me  to  do 
her  no  harm.  She  will  not  go  to  sleep  with- 
out my  hand  in  hers.  Sometimes,  after 
long  effort,  I  think  there  is  a  gleam  of  in- 
telligence, but  the  doctor  says  there  was  once 
too  much  intelligence,  and  her  case  is  hope- 
less. 

Hopeless,  poor  thing!  —  that  is  an  awful 
word :  I  could  not  wish  it  said  for  my  worst 
enemy. 

In  spite  of  these  ten  years  I  cannot  feel 
that  it  has  yet  been  said  for  me. 

If  I  am  strange  just   now,  it  is  only   the 


HER  STORY  249 

excitement  of  seeing  you,  only  the  habit  of 
the  strange  sights  and  sounds  here.  I  should 
be  calm  and  well  enough  at  home.  I  sit 
and  picture  to  myself  that  some  time  Spencer 
will  come  for  me  —  will  take  me  to  my  girls, 
my  fireside,  my  music.  I  shall  hear  his 
voice,  I  shall  rest  in  his  arms,  I  shall  be 
blest  again.  For,  oh,  Elizabeth,  I  do  for- 
give him  all ! 

Or  if  he  will  not  dare  to  trust  himself  at 
first,  I  picture  to  myself  how  he  will  send 
another  —  some  old  friend  who  knew  me 
before  my  trouble  —  who  will  see  me  and 
judge,  and  carry  back  report  that  I  am  all  I 
used  to  be  —  some  friend  who  will  open  the 
gates  of  heaven  to  me,  or  close  the  gates  of 
hell  upon  me  —  who  will  hold  my  life  and 
my  fate. 

If — oh  if  it  should  be  you,  Elizabeth  ! 


A  Lost  Identity 


A  Lost  Identity 


WHEN  two  seedlings,  planted  side  by 
side,  watered  by  the  same  shower, 
warmed  by  the  same  sun,  shaken  by  the 
same  breezes,  have  grown  so  close  together 
that  their  roots  make  one  tangle  and  their 
stems  one  fibre,  how  is  it  possible  to  separate 
them  and  leave  them  any  life  at  all  ?  Sepa- 
rated, can  they  be  more  than  dead  wood  to 
be  used  for  the  purpose  of  others,  with  no 
vitality  or  joy  of  their  own  further  than  the 
log  has  that  burns  upon  the  hearth?  I 
thought  of  that  once  in  looking  on  the  union 
of  Leonard  and  Helena.  Never  have  I 
seen  two  people  so  sufficient  to  themselves 
through  all  the  changes  of  the  planet.  Sepa- 
rated, would  either  of  them  live  other  than 
as  a  soulless  shadow?  They  thought  not; 
looking  at  their  happiness  as  if  it  were  a 


254  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

thing  held  in  their  hands ;  unashamed  of 
their  love,  and  speaking  of  it  freely  in  any 
passionate  moment. 

"  I  think,"  she  had  once  said,  "  that  if  we 
were  cast  away  upon  a  desert  island,  with  just 
a  book  or  two,  we  should  be  so  happy  as  to 
ask  for  nothing  more." 

"  I  have  often  thought  of  it,"  he  answered 
her.  "  How  much  at  one  we  are  !  Do  you 
know  there  are  some  substances  that  for  a 
long  time  seem  to  be  simple,  one  element 
only,  strong,  potent  for  good  ;  but  find  at 
last  and  mix  with  such  a  substance  its  pow- 
erful attacking  acid,  and  it  resolves  into  two 
principles,  each  faint,  powerless,  good  neither 
for  itself  nor  for  anything  else.  If  death 
should  be  that  powerful  attacking  force  for 
us,  resolving  us  into  something  other  than 
the  one  we  are  —  " 

"  Death  cannot  do  it ! "  she  cried  trium- 
phantly. 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  Life  cannot  do  it.  Not 
even  death  can  do  it.  We  shall  be  one  to 
the  grave,  in  it  and  beyond  it !  " 

They  could  hardly  remember  a  time  when 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          255 

they  had  not  been  a  part  of  each  other,  in 
childhood  or  youth  or  maturity.  Although 
there  was  a  difference  of  two  or  three  years 
in  their  ages,  no  pleasure  was  complete  for 
Helena  unless  Leonard  shared  it,  and  the  sor- 
row of  one  was  the  sorrow  of  both.  When 
not  yet  strong  enough  to  climb  they  used  to 
kiss  each  other  through  the  wickets.  Later 
they  played  together  in  the  orchard  grass 
and  fell  asleep  in  one  another's  arms  beneath 
the  old  plum  trees  there.  Helena  was  five 
years  old  —  a  little  gypsy  like  creature,  with 
her  great  black  eyes  and  rich  color,  and  the 
fine  flowing  threads  of  her  thick  black  hair 
about  her  face  —  and  Leonard,  fair  and 
comely  as  a  child  of  light,  when  they  set  out 
to  walk  to  the  end  of  the  world  together, 
hand  in  hand  along  the  dusky  highway  in  the 
sun,  till  the  end  seemed  as  far  off  as  the 
beginning. 

They  were  children  of  much  promise;  and 
Helena's  ambitions  did  not  suffer  her  to 
remain  far  behind  Leonard  in  their  studies. 
When  he  went  away  to  school,  she  felt  as 
if  some  integral  portion  of  herself  had 


256  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

been  severed  from  the  rest,  and  she  forgot 
her  loneliness  only  by  burying  herself  in 
her  books.  When  he  came  home  he  told 
her  how  bitter  were  those  first  days  with- 
out her.  Perhaps  the  next  half-term  was  not 
so  hard  to  him.  It  was  just  as  hard  to 
Helena,  alone  with  her  books,  without  the 
stimulus  of  contact  with  a  class,  but  content 
with  only  his  own  emulation  and  approba- 
tion. She  would  lose  herself  in  the  delights 
of  her  geometrical  demonstration,  which  had 
a  sort  of  poetry  in  it  to  her  mind,  in  the 
marvels  of  her  astronomy  or  chemistry,  but 
in  the  remaining  moments  she  only  seemed 
to  live  till  Leonard  should  come  home  again. 
She  went,  with  others,  to  his  examination 
when  school  was  ending.  She  knew  the  the- 
orem almost  as  well  as  he,  could  read  the  Vir- 
gilian  line  as  well ;  but  how  swiftly  and  simply 
and  easily  he  made  the  one  plain,  how  grace- 
fully and  lightly  he  rendered  the  other !  And 
when  he  recited  the  ballad  of  Naseby,  with  a 
white  face,  and  a  fire  kindling  in  those  lumin- 
ous gray  eyes,  her  heart  thrilled  and  her  blood 
ran  cold,  although  in  studying  by  herself  she 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  257 

had  hated  all  the  Puritan  rant.  That  was 
sad  to  her  —  that  she  and  Leonard  should 
not  think  alike  in  all  things :  but  they  did 
not.  She  formed  her  feminine  conclusions 
alone,  and  he  had  subtle  and  accomplished 
masters,  and  a  further  reach  and  fuller  grasp 
of  mind.  He  had  a  great  mind,  she  thought 
to  herself;  he  would  do  a  great  work  in  the 
world,  whether  he  went  into  politics  and 
helped  "  recast  the  nations  old  into  another 
mould,"  whether  he  sat  down  with  a  philo- 
sophical thesis  and  taught  people  how  to 
think,  or  whether  he  took  his  medical  degree 
and  concerned  himself  with  the  origin  of 
matter.  And  then,  at  last,  Leonard  was  in 
college,  coming  home  and  inseparable  from 
her  in  his  long  vacations,  but  beginning  to 
have  a  thousand  thoughts  that  were  not  her 
thoughts. 

"  How  strange  it  is,"  she  said  to  him  one 
day,  after  an  historical  discussion,  "  that  we 
who  used  to  have  one  thought  are  growing 
so  apart  ?  " 

"  We  shall  never  grow  apart,  even  if  one 
of  us  thinks  white  black  and  the  other  thinks 


258  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

it  blue,"  he  responded.  "  Those  are  surface 
things  ;  they  do  not  change  our  natures  and 
ourselves.  But  for  all  your  hatred  of  the 
enemies  of  church  and  king,  you  are  a  Puri- 
tan of  the  Puritans  yourself,  my  lady,"  he 
said,  with  his  jesting  voice.  And  he  laughed 
as  he  said  it,  twisting  the  long,  loose  tress  of 
darkness  that  had  fallen  on  his  shoulder  as 
they  leaned  over  the  same  book.  What 
odds  were  any  of  her  fancies  ?  She  was  still 
the  same  sweet  Helena. 

"  How  can  you  say  such  a  thirig?  " 

"  Because  it  is  true.  You  reproach  me  for 
loving  the  Naseby  ballad  —  you,  who  have 
inherited  from  two  hundred  years  of  Puritan 
ancestry  their  cast  of  mind,  their  austerity  of 
conviction,  their  —  I  suppose  if  you  knew  I 
won  fifty  dollars  at  cards  the  night  before  I 
came  home  —  " 

"  Oh,  Leonard  !  Leonard  !  " 

"  I  said  so.     The  Puritan  !  " 

"  The  Puritan  !  "  she  exclaimed,  the  tears 
suspended  on  her  glittering  lashes.  "  Have 
I  their  intolerance,  their  cruelty,  their  vul- 
garity, their  —  " 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  259 

"  You  have  their  habit  of  thought,  altered 
to  the  altered  times.  You  are  not  the  Pu- 
ritan of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  you  are 
of  the  nineteenth.  You  are  ready  to  cry  be- 
cause I  won  some  money  at  cards !  "  and  he 
laughed  so  gayly  that  she  could  not  be 
angry. 

"  I  should  not  think  you  would  care  for 
the  society  of  so  disagreeable  —  " 

"  Hush  !  hush  !  "  he  answered  her.  "  I 
allow  no  one  to  abuse  my  friends." 

"  But,  Leonard,  about  the  cards  ?  You 
know  how  dangerous  it  is,  how  ruinous,  how 
it  destroys  the  very  fibre  of  the  mind  —  " 

"  To  win  money  at  cards  ?  Look  here, 
Helena,  if  you  gaze  at  me  so  charmingly  as 
that  I  may  make  you  a  promise.  And  it 
would  be  a  cruelty  to  exact  it,  for  I  play  an 
excellent  game." 

She  was  so  beautiful  to  him  in  her  indig- 
nation that  he  cared  nothing  about  the  in- 
dignation. 

When  the  college  days  were  over,  their 
triumphs  had  been  Helena's  as  much  as 
Leonard's.  And  then  before  settling  to  the 


26o  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

study  of  his  profession,  he  went  about  the 
country  a  little,  and  at  the  end  of  it  spent 
the  time  in  Europe  thought  necessary. 
Travel  elevates  the  point  of  view  or  enlarges 
its  vision.  Helena  felt  when  Leonard  re- 
turned that  there  was  something  about  the 
masculine  mind,  whether  inherent  quality  or 
long  descended  culture,  that  was  beyond  her 
feminine  power.  And  yet  she  never  seemed 
sweeter  to  Leonard  than  at  that  moment. 
There  was  a  trifle  of  pensiveness  about  her, 
too,  that  was  wonderfully  attractive  in  one 
of  as  wanton  spirits  as  hers  often  were;  the 
melancholy  droop  of  the  long  black  lash 
touched  the  heart  with  a  sort  of  pleasant 
pain. 

But  Leonard  was  out  in  the  world  now  ; 
he  no  longer  spent  every  moment  with  He- 
lena. He  was  pursuing  his  profession,  and 
he  was  led  hither  and  thither  by  the  mo- 
ment. He  had  an  interest  and  a  curiosity 
in  everything  —  and  sometimes  it  was  a  fact 
of  science,  and  sometimes  it  was  a  pretty 
girl.  If  he  followed  the  pretty  girl  as  he 
would  a  show  in  the  street,  luring  him  on  — 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  261 

if  to  him  she  was  only  a  picture,  with  some 
human  interest  added,  but  no  interest  of  his 
own,  how  was  Helena  to  know  it  ?  The 
melancholy  droop  of  the  lash  became  a  droop 
of  the  lovely  corners  of  the  mouth  as  well. 
Leonard  was  hers,  had  always  been  hers. 
That  another  person  should  attract  him 
seemed  to  her  a  robbery  of  her  own  identity. 
And  apparently  that  yellow-haired  Louisa 
Dane  was  attracting  him  with  those  sketch- 
ing ringers  of  hers.  The  one  defect  in  Leon- 
ard was  that  he  had  no  love  for  music,  and 
music  was  the  passion  of  Helena's  soul.  On 
the  other  hand  he  had  a  fair  talent  with  his 
pencil,  and  Louisa  Dane  knew  how  to  drip 
the  color  from  her  brushes  in  a  way  that 
kindled  the  warmth  of  his  admiration.  As 
for  Helena  she  could  not  draw  a  straight  line 
or  a  crooked  one.  If  Leonard  wanted  to 
stroll  off  sketching  with  Louisa  Dane,  he 
was  free  to  do  so ;  she  had  no  right  to  pro- 
hibit it ;  all  the  more,  Louisa  Dane  seemed 
to  her  a  poor  sort  of  thing.  And  if  he  forgot 
her  in  amusing  himself,  this  dark  foreigner, 
Giuseppe  Maldoni,  who  had  drifted  to  the 


262  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

great  county  town  and  was  giving  music  les- 
sons there,  knew  how  to  beguile  your  soul 
out  of  your  body ;  and  the  mornings  He- 
lena and  Giuseppe  spent  together,  with  violin 
and  piano  and  song,  were  full  of  nothing 
but  music. 

"  What  under  heaven  do  you  see  in  that 
swarthy  son  of  thunder  ? "  asked  Leonard 
one  day  with  vexation,  meeting  the  Italian 
going  out. 

"  All  that  you  see  in  that  c  daughter  of  the 
gods,  divinely  tall  and  most  divinely  fair,'  " 
she  replied  :  "  a  community  of  interest." 

"  What  community  of  interest  can  I  have 
with  Louisa  Dane  ? "  he  cried.  "  She  is 
teaching  me  to  mix  my  colors." 

"And  Giuseppe  is  teaching  me  how  to 
move  the  world  with  diminished  sevenths." 

"  Giuseppe,  indeed !  And  since  how 
long  ?  Pshaw !  A  regular  shibboleth. 
There  seems  to  be  a  cant  to  every  art. 
There  is  something  sensual  about  music, 
Helena,"  he  said,  leaning  back  his  head, 
with  his  hands  clasped  behind  it,  where  he 
had  thrown  himself  on  the  lounge.  "Ani- 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  263 

mals  almost  invariably  recognize  its  power ; 
its  best  ministers  are  people  of  limited  intel- 
ligence;  even  idiots  have  been  known — " 

"  Stop,  stop,  sir ;  it  is  like  blasphemy ! 
The  one  divine  thing  on  earth,  the  one  thing 
that  lifts  the  soul  to  heaven,  that  solaces  sor- 
row, that  crowns  joy — " 

"  There,  there,  there  !  "  he  cried,  "  or  I 
shall  think  you  have  gone  mad.  It  is  a  dia- 
lect, I  suppose,"  he  added,  reflectively. 

"  And  there  is  no  dialect  or  shibboleth 
in  your  and  Louisa  Dane's  talk  about 
tones  and  technique  and  schools  and  mor- 
bidezza — " 

"  But  you  see  we  have  the  real  things  to 
show  for  it :  we  have  tones  or  technique  — 
or  we  haven't." 

And  then  she  laughed  and  began  to 
warble  "  Una  voce  poco  fa." 

"  I  dare  say,"  he  said,  "  that  you  are 
doing  that  in  a  manner  to  move  a  stone,  if  it 
had  an  ear  for  music.  That  sort  of  thing 
always  makes  me  remember  a  scene  in  a 
madhouse  near  a  city  on  the  French  coast, 
where  a  fellow  on  a  flute  drew  the  maniacs 


264          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

after  him  as  Orpheus  drew  the  brutes.  A 
singular  place  it  was  —  I  must  see  it  again 
some  day  —  they  had  ideas  there  about  the 
brain  and  its  management." 

But  Helena's  light-hearted  singing  was 
due  to  her  having  just  learned  a  secret  of 
nature,  and  being  suddenly  convinced  of  the 
fact  that  this  yellow-haired  youth,  with  his 
clear  gray  eyes  and  Greek  face,  was  not  to 
find  his  complement  in  any  girl  as  yellow- 
haired,  as  gray-eyed,  as  Greek-faced  as  him- 
self. Perhaps  he  knew  he  was  not  in  love 
with  the  pleasant  girl  who  sketched  with 
him :  certainly  what  he  did  not  know  was 
that  he  was  in  love  with  the  girl  who  sang 
with  the  Italian.  She  was  going  to  teach 
him.  She  —  she  herself —  had  long  known 
—  and  she  stopped  her  singing  and  hid  her 
crimson  face  between  her  hands. 

What  happened  to  her  inner  conscious- 
ness did  not  hinder  Helena  from  practising 
the  next  morning  with  Giuseppe,  from  walk- 
ing in  the  woods  with  him,  and  trying  to 
note  on  paper  the  musical  value  of  the 
susurrus  of  the  pines  and  the  tinkle  of  cat- 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  265 

bird's  song  and  bobolink's,  of  copying  out 
for  him  certain  exercises  that  he  needed,  of 
taking  down  the  rich  and  sweet  unwritten 
melodies  of  his  land,  of  which  he  knew 
scores ;  of  reading  with  him  the  treatises  on 
counterpoint,  canon  and  fugue.  It  was  all 
very  simple  —  why  should  Leonard  disturb 
himself?  But  he  did.  "  I  can  never  have 
Helena  a  moment  to  myself!"  he  exclaimed 
to  Helena's  Aunt  Jane. 

"And  why  should  you  expect  it?"  said 
Aunt  Jane.  And  at  the  glance  he  gave  her, 
Aunt  Jane,  who  had  put  brown  paper  on  a 
thousand  bumps  for  him,  and  given  him 
tarts  and  puffs  as  liberally,  and  received  all 
his  childish  confidences,  who  had  saved  him 
from  countless  punishments,  and  loved  him 
as  if  he  belonged  to  her,  replied,  "  You  look 
as  if  I  were  good  enough  to  eat,  and  you 
meant  to  do  it." 

"  I  have  found  out  —  I  have  found  out, 
Aunt  Jane,  what  is  the  matter  with  me !  " 
he  cried,  and  laid  his  head  in  the  good 
ample  lap. 

"  Well,  well,  my  dear  boy,"  she  said,  with 


266          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

her  fingers  on  his  clustering  locks,  "we  all 
have  a  time  to  find  that  out.  Thank  good- 
ness, if  you  don't  find  out  anything  worse. 
For,  to  save  my  soul,  I  can't  make  out  what 
Helena  means  if  she  doesn't  mean  to  marry 
this  Italian." 

"  Marry  him  !  "  cried  Leonard,  in  white 
amazement.  "  Why  she  can't.  She  is  mine 
and  I  am  hers,  we  —  we  —  we  have  been  as 
good  as  married  ever  since  she  was  born." 

"  She'll  cry  salt  tears  for  her  folly  yet," 
said  Aunt  Jane  grimly  —  her  customary 
volubility  quenched  in  her  own  tears  for 
the  time.  And  Leonard  went  away  on  fire 
to  his  finger  tips,  and  when  Helena  capped 
her  enormities  by  going  up  on  the  noon 
train  to  the  city  on  Saturday  afternoon  with 
Giuseppe,  to  hear  Faust,  the  first  person 
in  the  house  that  her  eyes  rested  on  was 
Leonard,  white  and  radiant  himself  with  the 
play  of  his  passions.  Nothing  to  him  was 
all  the  light  and  shadow  of  that  ideal  drama 
of  love,  and  youth,  and  joy,  and  grief;  he 
saw  none  of  it,  he  heard  none  of  it,  as  he 
saw  Helena  grow  ruddy  or  grow  pale,  smile 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  267 

or  weep  with  satisfaction  in  the  song  and 
the  singer.  And  when  he  observed  people 
wondering  at  her  vivid  Spanish  effect,  and 
heard  them  inquiring  who  she  was,  he  ground 
his  teeth  with  rage  again  to  think  she  was 
subject  to  such  remark  and  accompanied  by 
Giuseppe. 

"  Leonard  at  the  opera ! "  she  said,  as 
they  brushed  by  him  coming  out.  "  Don't 
tell  me  after  this  that  the  tonic  sol-fa  repre- 
sents senseless  hieroglyphics  to  you  !  Now, 
you  are  coming  home  with  us." 

"  Going  home  with  you  !  "  he  exclaimed 
in  the  same  suppressed  tone  and  with  flam- 
ing eyes.  "How  dare  you  speak  to  me  so  ! 
I  am  never  going  home  !  " 

"  I  think  you  will,"  she  said,  with  the 
smile  that  disclosed  the  little  teeth  like  ker- 
nels of  white  corn  in  that  sweet  and  whole- 
some mouth  of  hers.  "  For  I  will  sing  to 
you  and  the  Signer  the  *  Ave  Maria '  and 
the  c  Jewel  Song.'  "  She  was  making  prom- 
ises to  vacancy,  for  Leonard  was  not  there ; 
but  he  had  carried  away  her  roses  —  her 
bunch  of  great  yellow  roses  —  in  his  hand. 


268  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

He  came,  all  the  same,  with  the  evening, 
although  delaying  till  the  church  bells  rang 
nine.  Helena  was  alone,  and  there  were  no 
lights  in  the  room  other  than  those  shed 
from  the  soft  sea-coal  fire ;  but  that  gleam 
illumined  the  deep  claret  tint  of  her  velvet 
bodice  and  the  gold  flowered  gauze  scarf  she 
wore,  till  she  looked  like  a  Venetian  donzella 
waiting  to  be  painted  by  Pordenone.  She 
was  waiting  for  Leonard  only ;  she  had  been 
watching  for  him  and  pacing  the  floor  in  a 
suspense,  lest  she  had  gone  too  far,  that  was 
growing  beyond  her  bearing,  as  turn  after 
turn  she  stopped  at  the  window  and  saw  no 
shadow  on  the  garden  walk.  And  when  he 
came  in,  as  he  always  did,  without  knocking, 
she  was  standing  just  beside  the  door,  and 
her  arms  were  about  his  neck  and  their  lips 
met  together,  and  there  was  no  more  doubt 
or  darkness  between  them. 

"To  think,"  she  said,  by  and  by,  "your 
being  troubled  about  poor  Giuseppe, —  and 
his  wife  whom  he  adores,  at  home,  with  their 
six  children  ! " 

"  Do  not  speak  of  it,"  he  shuddered.     "  It 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          269 

is  all  too  dreadful.  Let  me  forget  it.  Or 
else  I  can  hardly  be  glad  of  it  as  opening  my 
eyes  and  giving  you  to  me  at  last." 

"  And  you  didn't  know  you  cared  for  me 
till  I  practised  scales  with  a  singing  mas- 
ter ? " 

"  Did  you  ? ' 

"  Why,  I  knew  it  always  !  "  she  said. 

"  I  knew  you  were  a  part  of  me ! "  he 
cried.  "  I  knew  you  were  vital  to  me.  I 
could  not  dream  of  existence  without  you. 
I  cannot  dream  of  existence  without  you 
now.  I  would  not  live  one  hour  if  you 
were  out  of  the  world.  Oh,  Helena,  my 
love,  how  awful  it  is  that  one  person  staying 
can  make  life  heaven  or  hell,  and  going  can 
eclipse  the  sun  itself!  " 

"  And  would  my  going  eclipse  the  sun  ?  " 
she  asked  archly.  "Are  you  so  different 
from  other  men  that  no  other  woman  could 
console  you  ?  " 

"  I  am  different  from  other  men.  For 
me  there  is  but  one  woman  in  the  world ; 
the  rest  are  shadows.  I  never  thought  what 
it  would  be  to  love  you  before;  you  have 


270          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

seemed,  without  thinking,  so  inseparable 
from  myself  and  my  life.  Helena,  I  don't 
know  but  I  was  happier  before  I  was 
happy ;  happier  in  my  unconscious  con- 
tent." But  with  her  head  upon  his  breast, 
and  her  eyes  gazing  up  at  him  —  eyes 
purple-dark  as  the  velvet  of  a  heartsease 
petal,  he  knew  that  words  were  all  in  vain, 
that  he  was  absorbingly  and  tumultuously 
happy  now,  and  that  he  must  make  the 
most  of  it,  for  life  was  too  long  for  such 
bliss  to  last. 

And  Helena  —  she  kept  feeling  that  now 
it  was  time  to  die  —  all  other  moments  in 
life  would  seem  pale  and  thin  beside  these 
supreme  ones.  "  How  beautiful  you  are  !  " 
he  cried.  "  Your  eyes  have  a  light  in  them 
that  does  not  belong  to  earth,  and  your 
smile  is  only  the  expression  of  an  inner 
beauty  — " 

"Hush,  hush!"  she  said.  "You  never 
used  to  speak  to  me  so." 

"  And  perhaps  I  never  shall  again.  I 
seem  never  to  have  seen  or  thought  of  it 
before.  But  it  is  not  for  your  beauty  that  I 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  271 

love  you.  It  would  be  all  the  same  with 
me  if  you  were  scarred  and  marred.  But  I 
must  speak  now ;  this  once  I  must  lay  my 
soul  bare  and  let  you  know  how  precious 
you  are  to  me.  I  must  look  at  it  myself. 
I  never  knew  it  till  this  year  began.  Singu- 
lar phenomenon  —  this  love  —  it  is  a  bur- 
den, it  is  a  dolor,  but  oh,  what  unspeakably 
delicious  dolor !  " 

And  the  maiden  to  whom  this  fervid  love 
was  tendered  slept  upon  the  clouds  by 
night,  and  seemed  to  walk  a  track  of  sun- 
beams into  heaven  itself  by  day.  All  things 
shared  her  happiness ;  the  people  in  the 
house  and  on  the  street ;  the  postman  or 
the  tramp ;  it  was  never  cloudy  weather 
when  she  flung  that  smile  across  their  way. 
It  seemed  good  to  staid  old  folk  whose  hey- 
day was  long  over,  like  Aunt  Annabel  or 
Aunt  Betty,  to  see  such  irradiating  bliss  in 
the  world ;  and  it  was  good  for  all  who 
crossed  her  path.  She  wanted  them  to  be 
glad  of  her  gladness,  and  she  pitied  them  so 
much  to  think  they  could  not  have  that 
gladness  for  their  own  that  she  could  not  do 
enough  for  them. 


272  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

The  lovers  would  probably  have  been 
married  at  once,  had  not  the  death  of 
Helena's  uncle,  with  whom  she  had  always 
lived,  and  the  discovery  of  his  insolvent 
estate,  leaving  her  the  three  aunts  with  no 
one  but  herself  on  whom  to  rely,  necessarily 
postponed  matters  a  little.  She  made  ar- 
rangements at  once  to  take  the  scholars  left 
after  Signor  Giuseppe's  departure,  and  she 
played  the  organ  for  an  early  church  and 
received  a  salary  for  singing  in  the  choir  of 
a  later  one.  And  she  stipulated  before  she 
married  to  be  allowed  to  continue  this 
course.  But  what  a  sweetness  that  year's 
engagement  added  to  her  life!  When  she 
was  used  to  remember  it  afterward  it  seemed 
only  like  one  long,  bright  summer's  day. 

Yet  sweet  as  that  was,  the  married  life  was 
sweeter.  Leonard  prospered  in  his  profes- 
sion ;  and  the  goodness  of  two  or  three 
grateful  patients,  who  died  at  last,  gave  him 
the  means  to  buy  Cragsnest,  a  small  estate 
upon  the  mountain  side  which  they  had 
long  coveted.  It  was  a  trifle  too  far  away 
from  the  town  for  a  physician's  convenience  .; 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          273 

but  he  had  his  office  hours  in  town,  and 
had  succeeded  so  well  that  he  could  afford 
indifference  as  to  the  accessibility  of  his 
house.  What  pleasure  they  had  in  beauti- 
fying the  place  !  Every  rose  they  planted, 
they  planted  together.  "  Their  blossoms 
will  seem  to  be  your  breath,"  he  said. 

Over  all  towered  the  dark  forest  of  pines. 
"  I  will  never  have  one  of  them  cut  down," 
he  said.  "We  have  sat  beneath  them  so 
much  that  they  have  fed  and  grown  great  on 
our  happiness  ;  something  of  you  has  gone 
into  them,  Helena.  When  we  are  apart  I 
always  feel  you  there  as  I  see  the  stars 
shining  through  them.  There  shall  be  no 
change  here  so  long  as  you  are  the  pole  star 
of  my  being." 

"  But  the  earth  swings  to  new  pole  stars," 
she  said  mischievously,  and  then  repenting 
the  mischief. 

They  had  the  satisfaction  of  children  in 
arranging  the  interior  of  the  house,  also; 
this  room  looked  out  upon  a  purple  moun- 
tain view ;  it  should  be  fitted  in  old-gold, 
and  the  tiles  around  the  fireplace  should 


274          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

be  done  in  the  massed  petals  of  deepest 
crimson  roses.  This  room  opened  on  the 
rushing  brook  and  its  still,  deep  pool,  like  a 
bit  of  fallen  sky ;  its  colors,  lighted  with  crys- 
tals, should  be  the  cool  blues  that  doubted 
if  they  were  not  greens,  like  Enid's 

"  Splendid  silk  of  foreign  looms 
Where  like  a  shoaling  sea  the  lovely  blue 
Played  into  green." 

This  room,  leading  into  the  study,  should 
be  full  of  flowers  and  gay  with  summer 
chintz;  and  the  library  should  have  the 
velvet,  mossy  shadows  of  sunlit  woods. 
The  aunts  were  coming  to  live  with  them, 
the  aunts  whom  Leonard  loved  as  much  as 
she  did ;  and  Helena  clasped  her  hands  in 
joy  a  hundred  times  a  day  to  think  what  a 
home  it  was,  and  how  perfect  the  days  would 
be  in  it.  They  hung  the  pictures  together 
—  chiefly  Leonard's  water  colors  —  lifting 
and  lowering  them  and  standing  back  and 
admiring  them  and  each  other ;  and  they  set 
up  their  books  and  arranged  the  details  of 
their  housekeeping  plans.,  all  in  Leonard's 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  275 

spare  moments  ;  and  there  was  not,  speaking 
loosely,  a  particle  of  dust  in  the  house  that 
had  not  connected  with  it  some  association, 
some  romance,  some  fact  of  their  lives  for 
both  of  them.  The  day  that  they  moved 
in  was  almost  as  much  to  Helena  as  the  day 
when,  crying  and  laughing  together,  her  face 
like  sun  and  rainbows  and  April  showers, 
she  had  kissed  her  aunts  and  gone  away, 
having  become  in  law  that  part  of  Leonard 
which  she  had  always  been  in  fact.  "To 
walk  to  the  end  of  the  world  together,"  he 
said. 

She  sat  on  the  doorstep  one  •  night,  years 
afterward,  looking  down  the  blue  mist  of  the 
gorge  that  a  long  beam  was  just  lighting 
with  its  dusty  gold,  and  life  seemed  to 
her  to  stretch  away  like  an  endless  path 
among  the  islands  of  the  blest.  What  a 
union  was  hers  and  Leonard's,  she  mused. 
They  read  the  same  books  together,  and  re- 
read the  old  ones ;  they  almost  thought 
the  same  thoughts  together ;  they  grew 
more  alike  each  day ;  they  had  dropped 
the  old  quarrels  about  matters  remote  as  the 


276  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

Puritans,  possibly  for  new  ones ;  but  where 
they  differed,  the  difference  only  brightened 
their  lives  with  gayety.  Yet  they  had  had 
their  troubles  together ;  at  first  some  effort 
to  make  both  ends  meet,  some  amazement 
to  Helena  to  find  her  husband  mortal 
enough  to  like  his  soup  clear  and  his  coffee 
hot,  some  revelation  to  Leonard  that  Helena 
had  a  temper  of  her  own  ;  and  then  the  pa- 
tients had  been  a  nuisance  to  her,  she  had  hated 
them  all  —  especially  the  women  who  adored 
and  confided  in  their  doctor  —  but  not  half  so 
much  a  nuisance  as  the  music  was  to  him, 
music  that  filled  his  house  with  clatter  and  stole 
his  wife  away  every  Sunday.  And  in  these 
years,  too,  Helena  had  gone  down  between 
the  gates  of  death,  and  as  her  husband  bent 
beside  her  in  her  recovery,  she  realized  afresh 
what  she  was  to  him,  and  how  the  breath  of 
his  life  hung  upon  hers.  "  They  are  beauti- 
ful," he  said  of  his  children  ;  "  they  are  you, 
they  are  me,  they  are  their  own  fresh  new 
beings,  the  spark  of  whose  life  was  our  love. 
But  they  are  nothing  to  me  beside  you,  my 
darling."  But  when  they  died  she  thought 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  277 

his  heart  would  break.  She  herself  felt  as 
he  had  thought  he  should  feel  —  a  tender 
grief,  a  perfect  love,  a  trust  in  the  hand 
that  gave  them  and  reclaimed  them ;  but 
Leonard  was  spared,  and  having  Leonard  she 
had  all.  And  there  was,  moreover,  a  cer- 
tain ecstasy  in  her  sorrow,  with  the  thought 
of  what  it  meant  to  have  children  in  heaven. 
"It  is  a  sacrament,"  she  said  to  Leonard. 
"  We  had  them,  God  has  them ;  God  and 
we,  and  no  others  enter  into  it.  It  is  a 
positive  and  actual  breaking  of  sacramental 
bread.  And  oh,  my  darling !  "  she  would 
cry,  throwing  her  arms  about  him,  "  since  I 
have  you  —  " 

But  as  time  went  on,  and  no  other  children 
came,  she  saw  that  it  was  a  grief  to  Leon- 
ard, an  increasing  grief.  He  loved  other 
people's  children,  and  longed  for  his  own. 
And  she  was  content  with  only  him.  Yet 
for  any  and  every  drawback,  what  a  perfect 
home  theirs  had  been  ;  what  generous  hospi- 
tality had  reigned  within  its  open  doors ; 
how  the  poor  knew  its  gates  as  the  birds  do 
the  branching  trees;  what  cheerfulness  and 


278  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

sweetness,  and  gay,  bright  social  life  and  love 
of  man  dwelt  there  !  Once  in  a  while,  it  is 
true,  Helena  had  a  smouldering  mood  that 
blazed  out  when  she  suspected  some  woman 
of  making  sickness  a  pretence  for  the  com- 
fort of  the  doctor's  presence,  and  wrathfully 
forbade  him  ever  to  bring  that  woman  into 
the  house  —  ending  always  by  carrying  her, 
herself,  all  manners  of  dainties  by  day,  and 
sitting  up  with  her  at  night.  Yes,  on  the 
whole,  an  almost  perfect  home  —  and  no  two 
days  alike  in  it. 

Leonard  came  and  sat  beside  her  as  the 
purple  began  to  wipe  out  the  gold  in  the  mist 
of  the  gorge  below  and  a  pale  star  trembled 
upon  the  upper  air.  "Ah,  what  a  beau- 
tiful world  it  is  ! "  she  sighed. 

"  Because  you  are  in  it,"  he  answered  her, 
lightly. 

"  Do  you  really  think  so  still,"  she  said, 
"  when  we  have  been  married  eight  years,  and 
after  all  my  tempers  ?  " 

"  I  shall  think  so  forever  !  You  are  to  me 
lovelier  than  the  day  I  married  you — a  closer 
part  of  the  fibre  of  my  inmost  being." 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          279 

"  I  think  I  believe  you,"  she  said,  half 
shyly.  "  I  think  if  I  were  to  die  you  are  the 
one  man  in  the  world  who  would  not  marry 
again." 

"  Marry  again  ! "  he  cried,  drawing  her 
toward  him  fervently.  "  When  I  so  detest 
second  marriages  that  I  hold  them  allowable 
only  as  evidence  that  the  first  was  no  mar- 
riage at  all?  And  I,  who  have  been  your 
husband,  profane  your  memory  by  putting 
another  woman  in  your  place !  Thank 
heaven,  there  are  some  things  that  are  im- 
possible !  "  And  she  returned  his  embrace  as 
fervently. 

"  And  I  should  not  live  to  marry  again," 
he  said.  "  If  grief  did  not  kill  me,  there  are 
quieting  potions  that  would.  What  should 
I  have  to  live  for?  How  could  I  survive 
the  loss  of  half  myself —  half  myself  from 
the  day  of  your  birth,  and  for  eight  years 
the  very  breath  of  my  being !  Not  even 
death  could  divorce  two  lives  knit  like 
ours ! " 

She  had  become  so  used  to  such  assevera- 
tions that  I  doubt  if  she  would  not  have  felt 


A  LOST  IDENTITY 

a  little  wronged  and  defrauded  had  he  failed 
to  make  it  as  emphatic.  As  it  was,  for  some 
subtle  reason,  it  only  filled  her  with  a  deep 
and  quiet  satisfaction.  "  I  pray  that  we  may 
go  together,"  she  cried,  clinging  to  him 
closely.  To  her  he  was  the  best,  the 
greatest,  the  loftiest  man  alive.  He  had 
something  of  the  largeness  of  the  gods  to 
their  worshippers;  something,  too,  of  the 
helplessness  of  the  child  to  its  mother.  She 
knew  that  her  flashes  and  blazes  and  singing 
spells  were  only  a  succession  of  new  experi- 
ences to  him  that  gave  her  something  of 
Cleopatra's  swiftest  charm.  She  wondered 
why  he  was  not  more  moved  by  that  mar- 
vellous voice  of  hers,  the  inmost  sweetness 
of  whose  tones  had  a  thrill  that  moved  other 
men  to  tears.  But  then  in  turn  she  could 
not  stand  spellbound  before  the  operations 
where  his  surgeon's  knife  wrought  wonders  ; 
—  and  her  voice  was  but  a  pleasure  of  the 
senses,  she  said,  while  his  skill  was  the  salva- 
tion of  a  life.  She  did  not  often  let  him  see 
her  in  such  tender  mood  as  this ;  she  would 
have  died  for  him  if  it  would  have  done  him 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  281 

any  good ;  she  would  have  died  with  him 
any  day  he  asked  it. 

She  had  a  chance  presently. 

They  had  gone  down  to  the  seaside  for  a 
week's  change,  as,  when  his  duties  allowed 
him,  they  sometimes  did.  For  he  had  pe- 
riods of  such  absorption  in  his  work  that  he 
came  out  of  it  all  half  wrecked  and  needing 
rest.  He  was  living  a  great  life,  beginning 
the  making  of  a  great  name.  And  standing 
with  many  as  a  sort  of  vicegerent  of  the 
powers  of  health  and  strength,  it  sometimes 
seemed  to  himself,  in  his  rapt  study,  that  he 
was  on  the  verge  of  discovering  mighty 
secrets  of  the  powers  of  life  and  death.  It 
seemed  so  to  Helena,  too. 

The  day  was  a  perfect  one,  with  now  and 
then  a  capful  of  wind  blowing  out  of  the 
little  round  clouds  that  swelled  up  over  the 
horizon  like  bubbles. 

"  Will  you  go  out  with  me  ? "  asked 
Helena. 

"  With  all  these  flaws  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Just  as  you  please.  Then  I  will  go 
alone." 


282  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

"  Alone !  What  in  heaven's  name  could 
you  do  alone  ?  " 

"  I  fancy,"  she  said,  the  laugh  brightening 
all  the  rich  color  in  her  cheek,  "  I  could 
drown,  in  order  that  you  should  blow  the 
fresh  breath  of  life  into  me  with  all  your 
occult  powers  ! " 

"  Life  would  be  much  more  comfortable, 
Helena,  if  there  were  something  in  it  you 
were  afraid  of.  Well,  here  we  go,"  and  he 
gathered  up  his  lazy  length  and  reached  his 
hat.  "If  we  drown,  it  is  your  fault." 

"It  doesn't  much  matter  about  drowning, 
though,"  she  said,  swinging  her  hat  as  they 
went  along  the  shingle,  and  unaware  that 
she  spoke  in  other  than  a  matter-of-fact-way, 
"if  we  drown  together." 

"Are  you  so  indifferent  to  life  —  in  such 
a  hurry  to  be  through  —  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no,  never !  But  it  is  all  so 
blest  that  I  am  half  the  time  afraid  some- 
thing will  happen." 

"  But  the  worst  that  could  happen  is 
death,  and  —  " 

"  No,  indeed  ;  the  worst  that  could  hap- 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  283 

pen  would  be  that  you  might  look  at  some 
other  woman ! "  and  then  they  both 
laughed,  knowing  well  the  habit  of  her 
jealous  pangs,  and  ran  along  to  the  boat,  it 
signifying  little  that  neither  of  them  knew 
much  about  a  boat,  and  that  they  were  run- 
ning before  the  wind  directly  in  the  track 
of  the  sea-going  steamers. 

"  Could  anything  be  more  perfect  ?  "  said 
Helena,  half  recumbent  in  the  stern,  sea  and 
sky  making  a  sapphire  and  lapis  ring  about 
her.  "We  seem  to  be  alone  in  this  great 
hollow  shell  of  the  sea  and  sky.  It  is  like 
our  old  lover  days  over  again." 

"  Only  better,"  he  answered  her. 

"  Only  better,"  she  repeated. 

"  We  must  come  out  at  night,  with  the 
sea  and  the  stars,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
universe,  alone  together."  And  as  they 
sailed  he  told  her  histories  of  the  old  craft 
that  had  ploughed  these  waters  —  fire  ships 
and  phantom  ships  —  and  recited  to  her 
verses  of  his  own  inditing,  for  now  and  then 
he  turned  off  a  little  song  as  perfect  as  a 
pearl. 


284          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

c-  That  is  the  strangest  thing,"  she  said, 
"  that  you,  who  don't  know  what  music  is, 
should  have  the  writing  of  such  verses,  and 
I,  who  am  music's  confidante,  cannot  write  a 
melody." 

"You  are  a  melody,"  he  said.  And  just 
at  that  instant  there  was  a  roar,  a  rush,  a 
ringing  of  bells  that  sounded  in  their  ears 
like  gongs,  wild  cries,  a  vast  black  bulk 
towering  over  them,  a  crash,  a  sweep  of 
many  waters,  and  then  nothingness. 

Half  an  hour  afterward  a  fisherman  found 
a  broken  boat  afloat  bottom  side  up,  and  a 
man  entangled  in  the  rigging,  his  head  above 
the  water,  unconscious,  but  alive.  Trim- 
ming his  sail  speedily,  he  took  the  half- 
drowned  man  ashore.  And  after  the  sick- 
ness and  delirium  of  weeks,  as  wretched  and 
desolate  a  man  as  walked  the  earth,  Leonard 
Vance  took  up  his  colorless  life,  alone,  as  he 
said,  till  the  sea  gave  up  its  dead.  For 
Helena  was  never  found.  I  scraped  the 
moss  away,  the  other  day,  from  a  stone  set 
up  as  a  memorial  without  a  grave,  and  over- 
grown with  bramble  roses,  to  read  the  name 
upon  it : 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  285 

HELENA  VANCE. 

Lost  at  Sea. 

Aged  28. 

To  the  happy,  half  a  score  of  years  may 
pass  like  a  dream  in  the  night.  They  may 
pass  like  a  dream  in  the  night,  too,  to  those 
who  are  simply  unaware  of  their  lapse,  as  a 
woman  lying  helpless  and  speechless  in  a 
large  hospital  for  the  insane,  near  a  town  on 
the  French  coast,  could  hardly  fail  to  be. 
She  had  been  brought  there  by  the  captain 
of  a  French  steamer,  who  had  picked  her  up 
at  sea, —  pitying  passengers  having  subscribed 
a  sum  of  money  for  her  comfort.  He  knew 
nothing  about  her  ;  the  injury  to  her  skull 
—  for  she  had  been,  perhaps,  dragged  the 
whole  length  of  the  keel  and  hurt  by  the 
propeller  —  had  already  made  her  insensible 
before  the  apoplexy  of  drowning  took  place, 
and  although,  when  drawn  on  board  the 
steamer,  she  was  found,  after  long  effort,  to 
be  living,  she  had  no  language  and  no  con- 
sciousness. The  fine  texture  of  the  frag- 
ments left  of  the  garments  torn  and  cut  and 


286  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

wrenched  away  indicated  comfortable  circum- 
stances ;  but  no  name  was  to  be  found  on 
any  of  the  remaining  portions.  Yet  one 
could  hardly  look  at  her  and  not  imagine 
her  to  have  been  a  person  of  singular  refine- 
ment, as  she  evidently  still  was  of  singular 
attraction  —  dark  and  shapely,  with  chiselled 
features  and  a  wealth  of  night-black  hair. 
The  captain,  who  left  her  at  the  hos- 
pital on  landing,  had  intended  to  insert  ad- 
vertisements respecting  her  in  the  American 
newspapers,  but  whether  he  did  so  or  not  no 
one  knew,  as  he  was  himself  lost  at  sea  on 
the  return  voyage. 

And  so  she  had  remained  where  he  had 
left  her,  her  case  exciting  some  interest 
among  surgeons.  The  fracture  of  the  skull 
had  long  been  reduced,  and  it  was  thought  that 
a  slow  absorption  would  relieve  the  brain  of 
pressure,  and  in  time  restore  the  patient  to 
herself  and  so  to  her  friends.  She  had 
gradually  waked  from  her  stupor,  and  given 
faint  glimmers  of  reason,  and  become  more 
and  more  intelligent,  although  so  slowly  that 
one  recognized  it  only  by  comparison  with 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  287 

the  past.  When  at  last  she  spoke,  it  was  in 
French.  Whether  that  was  her  native 
tongue  was  doubtful,  from  a  certain  pecu- 
liarity of  pronunciation.  It  was  possible 
she  had  learned  it  as  a  child  learns  its 
mother  tongue,  hearing  it  spoken  about 
her ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  if  she  be- 
longed, as  her  dark,  rich  color  seemed  to 
say,  to  the  southern  provinces,  that  would 
account  for  the  peculiarity.  In  the  eighth 
year  of  her  stay,  however,  she,  once  in  a 
while,  said  something  in  a  foreign  tongue, 
German,  perhaps,  or  English.  The  case  was 
inexplicable.  Some  months  later  she  seemed 
to  be  full  of  perplexing  thoughts,  of  melan- 
choly memories,  of  doubt  and  wonder ;  she 
obtained  from  the  attendants  all  that  they 
knew  about  herself;  but  she  said  nothing  in 
reply,  as  if  uncertain  whether  she  dreamed 
or  waked.  The  physicians  regarded  it  as  an 
unfavorable  symptom  that  she  became  very 
sad.  One  day  she  was  heard  humming  an 
Italian  air  full  of  fioriture ;  she  wept  after- 
ward, she  could  not  have  told  you  why. 
And  then  she  soothed  a  demented  child  by 


288  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

singing  to  him  softly  all  the  morning.  The 
attendants  got  in  the  way  of  asking  her  to 
sing  whenever  the  wards  were  noisy,  and  she 
always  brought  quiet  —  an  old  official  of  the 
place  used  to  do  the  same  thing  with  his 
flute,  they  said.  Once  when  a  danger- 
ous and  murderous  maniac  had  broken  loose 
and  was  dealing  havoc  on  his  way,  she  aston- 
ished everybody  within  the  walls  by  walk- 
ing coolly  toward  him  and  bursting  into  a 
triumphal  song,  full  throated,  resounding, 
sweet  to  the  soul's  satisfaction,  till  the 
maniac  crept  to  her  feet  and  allowed  the  at- 
tendants to  secure  him.  But  after  that  she 
seemed  more  bewildered  and  sad  than 
before. 

One  morning,  in  the  tenth  year  of  her 
stay,  wrapped  in  her  long  cloak  and  big  blue 
hood,  and  walking  in  the  grounds,  of  which 
she  had  long  had  the  liberty,  she  suddenly 
threw  up  her  hands,  uttering  a  loud  cry,  "  I 
have  it  all !  I  have  it  all !  "  slipped  through 
the  gate  and  was  gone.  The  clot  was  ab- 
sorbed at  last ;  the  cure  was  complete. 

Possibly    it    was    the    same    woman    who 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  289 

shipped  that  night  on  an  outward-bound 
vessel  as  stewardess,  took  her  wages  in  the 
American  port,  purchased  fresh  undergar- 
ments with  a  feverish  haste,  and  bought  a 
railway  ticket  for  the  town  where  Helena 
Vance  was  born  and  had  lived  her  happy 
life. 

How  slow  was  the  train  !  No  lively  tune 
could  its  motion  make  in  her  mind ;  the 
wheels  clamored  and  clattered  only  to  the 
movement  of  a  funeral  march.  She  could 
neither  eat,  nor  drink,  nor  sleep.  Ten 
years !  It  was  an  eternity !  Would  they 
be  alive  —  Leonard  —  the  dear  old  aunts  ? 
Who  had  taken  care  of  the  poor  things  in 
all  these  years  ?  How  they  must  have 
missed  her,  their  darling !  How  he  must 
have  missed  her,  his  other  self!  Robbed  of 
ten  years  of  happiness,  condemned  to  ten 
years  of  solitude  and  suffering  —  if,  indeed, 
he  had  not  himself  found  the  refuge  he  had 
always  looked  for  in  her  loss,  the  refuge 
of  the  grave.  How  she  would  work  to 
atone  to  him,  to  make  him  happy,  in  all 
their  remaining  years,  with  a  redoubled  hap- 


zyo          A  LOST  IDENTITY 

piness,  as  if  the  whole  tide,  that  should  have 
belonged  to  the  years  that  were  lost  in  that 
black  gap  of  unconsciousness,  flowed  back 
with  ten  times  repeated  strength  and  depth. 
Oh,  if  he  only  lived  !  She  longed  unspeak- 
ably once  more  to  feel  his  arms  about  her, 
his  kisses  on  her  mouth ;  to  look  into  his 
eyes  and  to  hear  his  voice.  Ten  years  could 
not  have  changed  him  so  much ;  they  had 
hardly  changed  her  at  all,  with  that  long 
slumber  of  the  brain.  And  once  more  to 
have  that  shelter,  that  support,  that  care, 
that  worship  !  Her  heart  beat  so  it  choked 
her ;  she  trembled  with  eagerness,  with  fear, 
with  hope,  with  joy.  And  yet  —  if  she  — 
should  —  meet  Leonard  with  a  smile  on  his 
face  — 

Five  o'clock  of  a  gray  afternoon,  when  a 
woman  in  a  long  cloak  and  a  blue  hood  that 
nearly  hid  her  face  walked  slowly  up  the 
hillside  to  Cragsnest  as  if  the  throbbing  of 
her  heart  made  it  barely  possible  to  move. 

The  place  had  changed  a  little.  The 
house  and  gardens  were  the  same  —  yes, 
there  were  the  roses.  "  Their  blossoms  will 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  291 

seem  to  be  your  breath,"  he  had  said.  Some- 
body cared  for  them  then.  "  Oh,  roses,  what 
happiness  you  witnessed  once ;  what  happi- 
ness you  shall  again  !  "  she  said.  But  still 
there  was  a  change  —  yes,  it  was  the  wilder- 
ness of  trees  above  and  below  that  were 
being  cut  away,  and  piles  of  cord-wood  and 
great  logs  made  a  confusion  of  the  place,  as 
if,  instead  of  being  a  finished  home  a  century 
old,  it  were  a  new  clearing  in  the  forest.  It 
made  her  shake  a  little,  as  her  eyes  wan- 
dered up  and  down ;  she  felt  as  if  that  would 
not  happen  if  Leonard  lived  there  still ; 
the  spot  should  be  sacred  to  him  with  mem- 
ory of  her.  What  was  it  he  had  once  said  ? 
"  There  shall  be  no  change  here  so  long  as 
you  are  the  pole  star  of  my  being."  What 
was  it  she  had  answered  him  ?  "  The  earth 
swings  to  new  pole  stars  !  " 

She  went  round  to  a  door  in  the  gable, 
tottering  at  last,  and  leaning  on  the  jamb  a 
moment ;  she  pulled  her  big  hood  about  her 
face,  and  knocked  and  went  into  a  room 
where  three  old  ladies  sat. 

Nothing  in   the  room    had  been  moved 


292  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

from  its  original  place  —  paper  and  pictures 
and  carpets  were  only  a  little  faded  —  that 
was  all.  A  pale  old  woman  slumbered  in 
her  chair  in  the  hebetude  of  age,  from  which 
she  seldom  waked ;  one  read  a  novel  in  a 
state  of  bland  contentment  and  well-being ; 
and  one,  the  lively  little  bustling  Aunt  Jane, 
was  busy  with  a  work  basket  and  humming 
pleasantly  to  herself  the  while.  If  the  three 
had  missed  their  niece  in  the  beginning,  they 
were  reconciled  by  this,  and  lived  a  happy, 
easy  life,  cared  for  in  sufficient  comfort,  evi- 
dently. 

"Let  you  rest?"  chirruped  Aunt  Jane. 
"  To  be  sure,  my  good  woman.  Take  the 
rocking  chair.  You  see,  this  is  the  house 
of  rest,"  glancing  at  her  sisters.  "  Are  you 
going  far  ? " 

"  Not  far,"  was  the  low  reply. 

"  From  the  neighborhood  here  ?  " 

"  I  used  to  live  here  once,  long  ago,  long 
ago." 

"Ah,  indeed,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  viewing 
on  her  stretched  fingers  the  hole  she  was  to 
darn.  "  Then  you  find  the  place  changed, 
I  suppose." 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  293 

"Oh,  yes  —  oh,  yes." 

"Well,  it  is  changed.  And  it's  a  pity, 
too.  But  they  have  been  cutting  down  the 
trees  ever  since  Leonard  married  again.  He 
found  it  profitable,  and  having  two  families 
to  support  —  " 

"  Is  —  is  —  is  Leonard  married  again  ?  " 
How  the  voice  shook !  It  was  only  a 
ghastly  whisper. 

"  You  knew  him,  then  ?  Oh,  yes,  long 
since.  Let's  see  —  five  years,  I  think. 
His  son  is  quite  a  lad.  He  —  " 

"  And  he  is  the  one  that  would  not  live 
if  his  wife  died ! "  said  the  other,  with  a 
sudden  hysterical  laugh  that  made  Aunt 
Betty  look  up  from  the  pages  of  her  novel. 
And  then  the  world  was  going  out  —  it  was 
all  black  —  it  was  going  out  —  No,  no  ;  she 
must  not,  she  would  not,  lose  her  self- 
control  ! 

Aunt  Jane's  needle  was  suspended  in  the 
air  a  moment  with  surprise,  and  then,  slow 
to  take  offence  or  imagine  evil,  she  answered, 
even  although  to  unheeding  ears :  "  Yes, 
I  see  you  knew  him  pretty  well.  But  he 


294  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

mourned  her  enough.  He  mourned  her 
enough.  And  then,  you  see,  he  was  a  man. 
I  can't  say  anything  —  we  couldn't,  you  see. 
He  takes  care  of  us.  And  he  had  a  right 
to  marry." 

There  was  a  gasp,  as  if  the  other  tried  in 
vain  to  speak,  or  had  repeated  the  words  be- 
fore the  sound  came  to  fill  them.  "  Did  he 
—  did  he  —  marry  Louisa  Dane  ?  " 

"Louisa  Dane,  indeed!  He  married  a 
little  pale,  thin  woman  that  he  met  in  the 
cars,  sick  and  weak,  with  air  cushions  and 
rugs  and  hot  water  bottles.  And  there  was 
a  great  accident,  and  this  miserable  little 
creature  who  could  not  take  care  of  herself 
began  to  take  care  of  everybody  else.  And 
he's  a  doctor,  you  know.  And  it  rather 
fetched  him,"  said  poor  Aunt  Jane,  uncon- 
scious of  her  slang.  "It  made  him  fond  of 
her,  and  by  and  by  —  he  was  so  sad  and 
solitary  —  he  went  and  brought  her  home. 
He  didn't  undertake  to  bring  her  here," 
said  Aunt  Jane,  emphatically.  "  He  isn't 
the  same  Leonard.  But  they  seem  happy. 
And,  as  I  said,  they  have  a  little  lad." 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          295 

"The  little  lad,"  murmured  a  voice  of 
infinite  sadness. 

"  And  Leonard  was  always  so  fond  of 
children.  But  for  my  part,"  snapped  Aunt 
Jane,  "  I  always  think  there's  a  good  deal  of 
make-believe  about  that  sort  of  sick  person 
—  can't  button  her  own  boots  one  year,  and 
a  competent  housekeeper  the  next !  Yes, 
Leonard  is  married  again,  and  very  comfor- 
table. Where  does  he  live  ?  "  guessing  rather 
than  hearing  the  words.  "  Down  town  near 
the  post  office.  But  he  comes  up  once  a 
month  or  so  to  settle  accounts  and  give  di- 
rections. He  keeps  his  old  study  here,  and 
he  always  comes  in  at  the  end  gate  and  goes 
in  there,  and  comes  out  to  see  us  by  and 
by,"  continued  the  garrulous  old  soul,  for 
the  visitor  allowed  her  to  run  on. 

She  was  pulling  herself  together  now. 
The  shock  was  vast.  Her  brain  seemed  to 
reel,  as  if  she  put  forth  all  her  strength  to 
save  herself  in  the  fall  down  a  black  and 
unknown  chasm.  Only  now  a  grim  fancy 
crossed  her  of  Leonard  shut  in  the  town, 
getting  all  the  small  ways  of  the  townspeople, 


296  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

living  cheaply,  with  closed  doors,  interested 
in  the  small  gossip,  small  pleasures,  small 
pursuits  of  the  town,  forgetting  the  old 
studies,  the  search  into  veiled  secrets  of  sci- 
ence, the  great  name  once  possible,  the  fame 
half  reached.  And  their  life  up  on  the  hill 
had  been  so  free  and  fine.  And  it  was  dust 
and  ashes  !  Ah  !  why  had  some  fire  from 
heaven  not  fallen  and  reduced  the  place  it- 
self to  the  same  ashes  that  its  life  had  found ! 
For  herself — 

She  must  not  think  of  herself  yet  —  that 
would  come  by  and  by ;  that  would  come  in 
the  terrible  days  and  nights  when  the  black 
waves  rose  around  her,  and  one  wave  tossed 
to  another,  and  a  blacker  storm,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  as  black  a  calm,  raged  within. 

She  sat  very  still  in  the  chair.  She  was 
trying  to  bring  some  order  from  the  con- 
fusion, to  stop  this  bell  that  was  tolling  the 
one  word  in  her  ear  like  a  death  knell. 
Leonard  was  married  again.  To  a  little 
delicate  woman.  She  made  his  home  agree- 
able to  him  ;  she  had  no  temper,  no  caprices, 
no  gay  rout  of  friends  — and  there  was  no 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  297 

music.  Doubtless  his  dinners  were  always 
nicely  cooked,  his  clothes  in  perfect  order. 
And  he  was  very  comfortable  ;  yes,  vastly 
more  comfortable  than  he  had  ever  been 
before.  There  were  no  discussions,  no  differ- 
ing views,  no  quarrels  —  he  had  a  reverential 
feeling  for  this  good  and  placid,  delicate 
white  woman.  And  there  was  the  little  lad. 

What  was  there  left  for  herself  but  the 
effacement  that  fate  had  given  her  ? 

Yet  if  she  could  see  him  once  again ! 
Perhaps  she  would  better  not.  She  might 
betray  herself.  It  would  be  harder  still. 
Now  she  could  go  as  she  came.  She  could 
make  the  sacrifice.  She  was  sure  of  herself. 
But  should  she  see  his  eyes  — 

"  I  declare  !  "  said  Aunt  Jane.  "  That's 
Leonard  now,  coming  in  the  gate.  And 
Bridget's  dusting  the  study  —  she  was  late 
in  her  sweeping  to-day  —  and  not  half 
through." 

"  I  will  go  in,  then,  if  you  please.  I  know 
the  way.  I  came  to  speak  with  him,"  said 
the  other,  and  she  called  all  her  forces  and 
rose. 


298  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

"Well,  if  you  would  just  as  lief.  My 
ankle's  lame,  and  I  rather  favor  it,"  said 
Aunt  Jane,  looking  after  her,  as  she  groped 
her  way  rather  than  walked.  "  Just  Helena's 
height,  poor  girl !  "  said  Aunt  Jane  as  the 
door  closed,  "and  there  was  something  in 
her  voice  like  Helena's  too.  Didn't  know 
he  had  a  down  town  office,  I  suppose ;  and 
she  does  seem  weak.  I  declare  I  don't  see 
how  Annabel  wears  such  holes  in  her  stock- 
ings and  she  never  setting  her  foot  to  the 
ground  !  I  wonder  if  it  can  be  possible  that 
Bridget  wears  them  herself  the  odd  week." 

The  study  opened  from  the  flower  room, 
empty  now,  but  once  a  bright  little  spot  of 
gay  chintzes,  and  roses  and  oleanders  and 
palms  and  camelias.  It  seemed  as  if  Bridget 
were  never  coming  out.  Any  one  might  hear 
this  heart  beat  like  the  hammers  of  a  forge. 
It  would  be  dark  presently,  and  she  must  be 
going.  Not  once  did  she  think  of  breaking 
off  that  marriage.  If  he  could  make  it,  he 
could  keep  it.  Perhaps  he  was  happier  so  ; 
she  would  not  add  to  his  troubles  by  re- 
appearing on  the  scene.  And  then  there  was 


A  LOST  IDENTITY  299 

the  little  lad.  She  sank  upon  the  seat  in 
the  lonely  place,  and  her  arms  fell  straight 
across  her  knees,  with  her  head  between 
them.  It  was  despair.  That  little  lad  was 
the  keenest  blow  of  all  —  he  must  needs  love 
his  own  child  —  and  it  was  hers,  that  other 
woman's !  Ah,  how  cruel  was  fate,  was 
nature,  was  God  !  There  was  nothing  for 
her  but  obliteration,  annihilation  of  all  that 
made  life. 

Dimly  under  all  the  pang  was  a  feeling 
that  she  would  like  to  see  that  little  lad. 

At  last  Bridget  went  out  by  the  door  into 
the  garden,  and  so  away.  There  was  a 
movement  of  a  chair  drawn  to  a  table,  of  a 
curtain  pushed  up  for  light.  She  was  hardly 
acting  with  volition  now,  but  as  if  necessity 
had  taken  hold  of  her.  She  dropped  her 
hood  and  noiselessly  stole  into  the  study, 
where  lay  the  last  western  light,  for  Leon- 
ard's back  was  turned,  and  she  fell  upon  a 
chair  that  would  be  opposite  him  when  he 
should  turn  again.  He  slightly  wheeled  his 
chair  about  on  the  pivot,  still  looking  at  the 
paper  in  his  hand.  How  grave  he  was; 


300  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

how  pale ;  how  still.  All  the  old  fire  had 
gone,  all  the  old  light  and  laughter.  He 
was  silent,  full  of  reserve,  contented,  it  might 
be,  but  with  gaps  of  bitter  memories,  one 
would  say.  And  beautiful  —  beautiful  as 
even  in  his  proudest  youth !  Giving  his 
life  in  small  ways  to  others  now  —  what 
better  could  she  herself  do  !  Perhaps  she 
had  no  blame  for  him  —  but  she  had  lost 
him  —  he  had  gone  away  from  her  forever, 
forever ! 

She  moved,  her  profile  lying  half  to  the 
light  that  came  full  upon  it ;  the  rustle  made 
him  glance  up.  For  a  moment  —  a  thrill, 
a  throb  —  he  gazed  on  her,  stone  still,  as 
if  a  cataclysm  had  struck  him  dumb.  And 
then  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  started  back 
in  a  kind  of  horror. 

"  Helena  !  "  he  cried  in  a  voice  of  agony. 

She,  too,  stood  up.  He  was  holding  out 
his  arms  to  her  with  a  great  sob.  It  seemed 
as  if  a  wind  blew  her  into  them.  But  as  his 
head  bent,  she  turned  even  her  cheek  away. 
"At  least,"  he  said,  "at  least  I  may  take 
you  in  my  arms  again  !  "  And  as  suddenly 


A  LOST  IDENTITY          301 

and  impetuously  he  released  her,  walking  to 
the  window.  When  he  turned  she  was 
gone. 

"  We  have  seen  a  ghost,"  said  Aunt  Jane, 
that  midnight,  after  all  the  quiet  search. 
But  I  think  that  Leonard  Vance  knew 
whether  he  had  seen  a  ghost  or  not. 

Three  weeks  from  the  day  she  slipped 
through  the  asylum  gates  near  the  city  on 
the  French  coast,  the  woman  in  the  long 
cloak  and  blue  hood  walked  in  again  — 
if  it  were  the  same  woman.  Her  long,  black 
hair  was  as  white  as  if  ashes  had  been  sifted 
over  it.  Ashes  had  been  sifted  over  it  — 
the  ashes  of  a  dead  happiness.  I  have 
met  with  nothing  more  concerning  her,  un- 
less the  subjoined  paragraph  in  a  foreign 
journal  had  reference  to  her  in  her  life  of 
effacement : 

At  the  conflagration  occurring  last  week  in  the  Asylum 
of  Our  Lady  of  the  Suffering  Heart,  the  loss  of  life 
would  have  been  appalling  but  for  the  presence  of  mind 
of  one  of  the  attendants.  It  seems  that  when  the  fire 
broke  out  the  wildest  panic  seized  the  unfortunate  in- 
mates, and  all  would  inevitably  have  perished  in  the 


302  A  LOST  IDENTITY 

flames  had  not  this  attendant  of  whom  we  speak  sud- 
denly begun  to  sing.  Her  clear  soprano  voice  —  a 
voice  that  seemed,  to  those  assisting  at  the  prodigious 
spectacle,  sweeter  than  anything  ever  heard  on  earth  — 
rose  over  the  stupendous  uproar,  as  the  singer  stood  quite 
still  in  the  centre  of  the  main  hall,  with  the  roof  ready 
to  fall  in,  till  the  wretched  people  had  gathered  about 
her,  when,  still  singing,  she  quietly  led  them  out  into 
safety.  Whether  this  attendant  is  some  retired  prima 
donna  assoluta  with  a  history,  or  whether  merely  a 
simple  person  caring  for  the  insane,  is  not  known.  But 
she  is  to  be  placed  at  once  in  a  responsible  position  at 
the  head  of  the  female  wards  of  the  new  asylum,  in  the 
performance  of  the  sad  duties  to  which  she  has  devoted 
her  life. 

But  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  in  the  career 
of  this  simple  country  doctor  there  was 
something  more  than  the  sorrow  of  a  man 
who  had  lost  the  wife  of  his  youth  and  had 
by  and  by  married  again  —  there  was  a 
tragedy  as  if  the  stars  had  crashed  together 
and  extinguished  the  light  of  heaven. 


PRINTED  BY  GEO.  H.  ELLIS 
AT  ^^^  CONGRESS  STREET 
BOSTON,  FOR  RICHARD 
G.  BADGER  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 
BOSTON 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
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